Spirit of a Dragon
by IOTA.G
Summary: The Dark master has been defeated and Spyro and Cynder have a chance at a normal life together. But what will happen when a new evil looms in their path? With their new allies will they survive? Or perish at the hand of this unknown evil?
1. Chapter 1: The Return of Heroes

**Spirit of a Dragon **

**Ch.1: The Return of Heroes**

**AN: Hello! And welcome to my story, this is my first fanfiction so please no flames. I actually had to retype this chapter because another author gave me some very convincing advice (riverstyxx!) Comments will be appreciated greatly and if you have any suggestions PM me. And now on with the story! Btw I noticed that I was forgetting something very important, the disclaimer! And I though what an idiot I am!**

Disclaimer: I do not own Spyro or any characters created by sierra entertainment, sadly

Prologue:

"You cannot defeat me! I am eternal!" Malefor screamed, suspended in air by the aid of his wings.

He opened his large purple maw and a concentrated beam of convexity erupted out of his mouth, directed strait at Spyro and Cynder, who countered it with their own convexity beams. "Just… hang… on!" Spyro shouted to Cynder, trying only to keep his own beam steady.

Waves of energy shot everywhere, cracking the caves and a bit of the dark amethyst core of the planet. The beam rippled, turning and curving around before returning to a slightly more stable state

Slowly but steadily their beam began to push Malefor's back, and the two beams merged, hitting with great force. He fell, flipping, down to the dark purple, crystal core of the planet. Malefor stood up and readied himself for another attack, but stopped when five spiritual dragons phased out of the core –the five spirits of the past purple dragons- they jumped into the rancid, soot filled air and flew at him. They began to pull him into the core of the planet. "NOOOOOOOOOOO!" was all he got to say before he phased through the crystal completely.

Cynder landed by Spyro with a grim look plastered across her face. "Spyro I'm sorry, I'm so sorry." Cynder apologized, dipping her eyes as if it were her fault.

"Don't be, it's over now." He said as they both looked at the crumbling planet.

"So this is it?" Cynder questioned, looking back at Spyro.

'_Spyro, when a dragon dies he does not truly leave this world, his spirit lives on binding itself with nature, offering hope for the future.'_ A vacant voice echoed.

Spyro looked around trying to find the source of the voice, but gave up when nothing was found.

And as soon as he realized what needed to be done, he said. "I know what I need to do. Just get out of here Cynder!"

"Spyro, no, you don't have to do anything! Let's just go!"

"Where to Cynder? There'll be nothing left! The world is breaking apart, but I think I can stop it… I think I'm meant to." He said, the last few words trailing off.

"Then I'm with you!"

Spyro knew he couldn't convince her otherwise, so he began to gather his energy. He rose into the air and unfurled his wings, much like a fury, which began to glow with an eerie purple light. He could feel the sections of the planet, Every last one. He tried to pull them back into place, but they wouldn't budge. He began to panic, he almost lost concentration. "I love you."

Spyro had barely heard the words. He had renewed strength as soon as he heard them. The pieces shifted back into place and Spyro and Cynder felt the fatigue fall over them and they blacked out.

The sun slowly rose over the valley of Avalar, its fingers of sunlight stretched across the hills and mountains. The three guardians and Sparx slowly stepped out of the cave that they had taken shelter in. They all looked around at every little detail, looking for the slightest trace of the crumbling world. They found none. Many other creatures stepped out of their shelters and one by one they erupted in cheers.

"They did it! I can't believe they did it!" Sparx shouted to the sky.

The guardians were just smiling, content that the two young dragons had saved them all. The laughing and joy was short lived as people began to leave the sight, returning to their homes or the city of Warfang, reuniting with family or loved ones. The guardians were worried though. Spyro and Cynder had not returned yet. They sent out search parties and put their best efforts into finding them. All this happened over the course of three months and eventually they had to call a quits. The news was devastating to the population of the city and many other small villages. Most people gave up hope that they would return and they never did. How wrong those people were…

_**Spirit of a Dragon**_

The sounds of the night were bustling, crickets chirped and frogs croaked their songs. Under a small oak tree not far from the remnants of the well of souls, or as some people referred to it as the mountain of Malefor, lay two young dragons one of purple the other of black.

Spyro's head was buzzing like an angry bee. He shivered, slowly opened one eye at a time and looked up at the new glowing dragon constellation with his amethyst eyes. _'When did that get there?_' He thought, squinting his eyes.

After he finished his mental assault on the celestial body he began to remember what happened. Ignitus, his mentor and fatherly figure, had given his life so that Spyro and another could get through the belt of fire. He remembered defeating the evil purple dragon, Malefor, and finally he remembered the world falling apart. But somehow he stopped it. He remembered three words spoken to him during the fray. "_I love you_."

And then he remembered Cynder. He jumped up, wincing in utter pain at his stiff muscles and looked around. He began to worry until his eye caught the glint of moonlight shining off Cynder's onyx scales and silver bracers.

He scrambled over to her and put his head to her chest. He heard the steady _'thump… thump… thump'_ of her heartbeat. He sighed and slowed his rapid breathing. "Thank the ancestors." Spyro said to no one in particular.

Spyro smiled and plopped his tired body down next to Cynder's, draped a wing over her body and intertwined their tails. Cynder responded to the touch by slowly snuggling up to Spyro and giving a faint smile. He just laid there thinking, thinking about all that's happened, how long they were out for and most of all, if everyone at Warfang was still safe. He laid there pondering until the endless void of sleep took over him and he closed his eyes once more.

Morning came to the dragon realms with open arms. Trees were turning a slight orange and red, flowers were blooming and the first signs of autum were everywhere. The sunlight came over the horizon and fell onto a hill shaded by a large oak tree, which had just grown fresh new leaves. Under the tree, the two heroes were sleeping peacefully.

Cynder grunted as the morning rays hit her eyes. She opened them slowly and rubbed her eyes with a paw, confused due to her slowed mind. With a yawn she rolled over on her side and noticed the purple dragon, Spyro, was asleep next to her with his wing over her body and her tail wrapped around his. She smiled at this. _'Well then?' _she thought, raising an eyebrow.

Cynder carefully lifted his wing and stood up. She took in the morning scent of dew and the feel of the warm sunlight on her dark colored scales. She turned back to the purple dragon "Spyro… Spyro, wake up." She said, shaking his shoulder with the blunt of her head

She whispered the same closer to his ear. "ughh… Cynder?" Spyro mumbled as he squinted.

She nodded her head fast, overjoyed that he was awake. Spyro was wide awake in an instant and tackled Cynder into a hug, causing them to tumble down the hill they were on and onto the luscious green grass. "We did it!" Cynder shouted.

"I know! Malefor is dead and peace is finally restored!" Spyro said in between laughs.

After their fit of laughter Spyro noticed that he was on laying on top of Cynder and blushed. He quickly stepped off of her and they both stood up awkwardly. "Um… Cynder?"

"Yes Spyro." She knew what was coming and that this was inevitable but didn't say anything; she just waited for him to speak again.

"A-about what you said in the core…"

She turned dark rosebushes of red and looked away.

"I love you too."He said with a smile.

All the suspense, all the fear came rushing out of her in an instant. She jumped forward and put her lips on Spyro's, and they met in a passionate kiss. Nothing mattered to them in that moment but each other. This was the one moment that the two dragons wished would last forever, but they needed air.

They parted and brought each other into a warm embrace. Cynder had tears in her eyes. She could finally be with Spyro, finally be with the one dragon she wanted to spend the rest of her life with. Spyro released Cynder and stared into her glistening emerald eyes. _'She has beautiful eyes_.' He thought to. But there moment was interrupted when a growl was heard from both the dragons. They both giggled. "I'll go find us something to eat." Spyro said with a smile.

"Okay, hurry back!"Cynder shouted to Spyro.

"I will!" he shouted as he ran and jumped into the air.

Spyro had been searching for a good thirty minutes when he spotted a large herd of deer, some grazing, others lounging by a pond. He smirked and dived, shifting his wings ever so slightly to angle himself into a dive, and he landed on a male buck's back. It ran, snorted and kicked but was no match to the purple dragon; he slit the deer's throat with an easy tail swipe and heard a cry of anguish as the buck drew its last breath. Spyro, wiped the blood off of his tail in the grass, grabbed the buck with his paws and began to fly back in Cynder's direction.

Cynder was lying down under the oak tree, head in her paws. She watched in all directions at the newly grown leaves and the running squirrels and chipmunks. '_This is nice.' _She thought,and she closed her eyes.

She dozed lazily in the shade, occasionally lifting herself up onto all fours and testing her stone-stiff limbs, but she always sat back down. She was interrupted from her light sleeping when a set of wings could be heard flapping, she peered out into the air and gave a slight smile as she saw Spyro.

He landed with a small puff of dirt. "Hey, miss me?"

"Y-yeah." Cynder replied as she trotted up to Spyro, she was clearly focused on the dead animal he had placed down.

"Eager much?" he asked, cocking an eyebrow.

She chuckled and nodded. "Well then I'll cook it"

Spyro turned back around and opened his maw, torrents of flames leaping out and slow roasting the buck, the sweet aroma made their mouths water.

Spyro and Cynder shared the buck, both of them occasionally stealing a glance at one another. Most of the meat was gone by the time they were finished eating, leaving only bones and a few scraps of meat. Spyro noticed that Cynder still had a speck of meat on her cheek so, getting a little bold, he licked her face clean which made her blush again. "So what should we do now?" Cynder wondered aloud, brushing aside the affection.

"We should probably get back to Warfang; find out all that's happened." Spyro suggested.

"How long do you think we've been out?" Cynder asked.

"I don't know, but if I had to guess I'd say… a couple months to a year." Spyro answered, looking at the both of them as if trying to find something different.

"A whole year huh?" Cynder said as she looked to the ground.

"Yeah considering how much our bodies have changed." Spyro stepped around Cynder in a circle.

He was right. Cynder noticed that they were both taller, she was curvier, Spyro's voice was slightly deeper and both their scales were more toned. "Wow your right. I wonder how everyone is doing back at Warfang." Cynder said, looking back up at him.

"Why don't we find out then?" Spyro suggested.

"Okay. But where is Warfang?" she asked with a smile.

Spyro looked around. "The mountain of Malefor is right over there, so Warfang should be just north-west from here."Spyro said as he pointed to the mountain.

"Okay then, let's go!" Cynder shouted as she jumped into the air.

"Hey! Wait for me!"

**AN: So what did you think of the first chapter of Spirit of a Dragon (retyped! Again (T_T)) ? Did you like it? I really enjoyed writing this and will have the next chapter up VERY soon, like today or tomorrow (Already up). Please leave reviews and if you have any suggestions PM me. Also, check out riverstyxx stories if you haven't already, they're really good. And by the way I got really tired of chapters that only had one word as a name so I'll be changing that. So byeees.**


	2. Chapter 2: Warfang

**The Legend of Spyro: Spirit of a Dragon**

**Ch.2 : Warfang**

**AN: Helllooooo and welcome back this is the second chapter to SoaD and all I pretty much have to say is that there will be like 3 or 4 chapters in the front with not so much action in it, but it will pick up! Just please bear with me. On with the story!**

The dragon city of Warfang was a sight to see. Dragons, moles, and cheetahs were everywhere, conversing and living out their daily lives, going to shops and merchants and buying supplies . Spyro and Cynder approached the city at high speeds, the wind blowing at their faces. "We're almost there!" He shouted over the wind

But Cynder didn't hear, she was looking at the world below, too lost in thought. Spyro slowed down to a stop and Cynder came to a halt beside him. "Cynder, what's wrong?"Spyro asked worried about what she was about to say

"Nothing it's just…don't you think that we'll draw too much attention in the city?" Cynder answered.

"Yeah, I thought of that. That's why I think we should get cloaks, to hide ourselves. Then we sneak through the city, and then find the guardians. That shouldn't be too hard." Spyro said strategically.

"Okay, that sounds good."

The two then flew down to the wall, and landed as close to it as they could. The crevices and cracks giving them places to slip small limbs into. "Okay, how are we going to get in?" Cynder asked, turning around and looking at Spyro.

He thought for a minute, and then said. "I'll use dragon time, and then fly us in."

Cynder was skeptical. She barely knew anything about dragon time, much less if she was ready to use it. "You ready?" he asked.

"Not really." She whispered

"It's okay. Just grab on, and hold on tight."

Cynder walked up to Spyro, put her paws around his neck and closed her eyes. Spyro focused and felt the all too familiar tug in his gut as he activated dragon time. Activating dragon time was nothing for Spyro, he had done this plenty of times before, but it was different for Cynder, her entire body felt numb and her senses felt dulled, the sensation was so new to her that she almost let go of Spyro, but she held on no matter how scared she was. Spyro bended his hind legs and launched himself into the air as fast as he could. He watched the moles march in slow motion as he flew between them. Cynder felt like she was going to be sick. She had never gone this speed before and hoped it would be over soon. Of course it was for her, but for Spyro, it was just like leisurely flying over the wall. He angled his wings toward the ground and pelted to the ground below the other side of the wall, released his hold on dragon time and put his and Cynder's back to the wall, and looked up. He heard one mole ask another. "Did you just feel that?"He said while looking into the air as if trying to find some invisible force.

"Feel what?" the other mole asked, looking at the mole as if he had gone delusional.

"That rush of wind just now." The fist mole said again, pointing to the same spot Spyro had been only seconds before.

"No. Did you ever think that it could actually _be _the wind?" the other replied sarcastically.

"Your right, just the wind." The first mole said, looking down, obviously lost in thought.

The two moles continued patrolling. Cynder was breathing hard, the breath taken out of her, and gasping for air. "Are you okay?" Spyro asked.

It took a few minutes for Cynder to calm down. "Yeah… I'm-I'm… fine." Cynder said still taking deep breaths.

Spyro and Cynder walked down empty alleyway, after, empty alleyway, until Spyro spotted a wire hanging from a window to the opposite wall. Spyro flew up and hovered over two cloaks that would easily fit them. "They won't mind if we borrow these." He grabbed the two cloaks, which were both plain black and made of simple cloth, and glided down next to Cynder.

He threw the cloak around her back and tied the straps around her neck. "Thanks." She said.

"You're welcome." Spyro replied.

He slipped his on, and they put their hoods up. The two calmly walked out of the alleyway. Not very many dragons looked at them, or even noticed them, but it was still enough to make Cynder nervous, walk closer to Spyro and intertwine her tail with his. Spyro understood that she was feeling worried and whispered "its okay. So what if not everyone trusts you right now. I trust you and I will always stay by your side. I love you, Cynder and nothing will change that."

Cynder rubbed the roof of her head on the underside of Spyro's neck. "I love you too, and thanks, I really needed that."

He smiled then leaned his head down and kisses her as a response. It wasn't long but it reassured Cynder. They kept walking, until the two came upon a garden that was filled with many different kinds of flowers, some of which, were bundled up and placed at the foot of a statue made of white marble. The statue was of Spyro, Cynder and Ignitus. Seeing themselves, and most importantly Ignitus, Spyro walked up to the statue followed closely by Cynder. The stone had words carved on a block under the actual statue. Seeing this, Spyro and Cynder read it to themselves. The carvings read.

-This statue lies in the city of Warfang as a grave marker, to honor three heroes, who selflessly gave their lives for all of us and the rest of the world. Spyro (right) was the purple dragon of legend. He took up the task of defeating Malefor, another purple dragon, who was trying to destroy the earth and restore peace to the dragon realms, with his faithful partner, Cynder. He was a brave, young, and considerate dragon, who always put others in front of himself and never gave up in a fight. Cynder (left) was corrupted by darkness and forced to serve under Malefor. But through it all, she never gave up and was saved by Spyro. She took up the task of accompanying Spyro, on his quest to saved the world, and defeat the dark master. She was a young, bright dragoness who always tried to help others. Ignitus (middle) was one of the four guardians. As the guardian of fire, he took up the task of training Spyro. He gave his life, going through the belt of fire, so that Spyro and Cynder could get through. He was a mighty, fearless dragon, who was filled with wisdom and was a friend to all. To this day, this marker stands as a reminder of their greatness.

Spyro and Cynder were speechless, just staring blankly at the grave. Neither of them spoke for quite some time. The silence was disrupted, however, by Spyro. "I can't believe it." He said, barely above a whisper.

"I know… I can't believe that they think were dead." Cynder whispered, the sadness obvious in her voice.

Spyro shot a menacing glare at the statue. "That's about to change." Spyro said as he turned around and set his sights on the dragon temple.

He ran. Cynder was trying as hard as she could to catch up with him. Their cloaks flapping in the wind, they paid passing dragons and moles no heed. She had never seen him run this fast before, it was like he had some insane drive to prove to everyone that he hadn't failed yet. Spyro began to slow down, as a large crowd of dragons came into view, and Cynder caught up with him. As she caught her breath again, they looked briefly at each other and pushed through the cheering crowd of dragons until they made it to the middle. Spyro and Cynder were witnessing a fight between a dragon with fire red scales, golden underbelly, horns, claws and tail blade, which Spyro recognized as Flame, a dragon they had met before they left to fight Malefor, and another dragon with green scales, brown underbelly, horns and tail blade which was shaped like a flail. The green dragon had a slightly larger build than Flame and seemed to be winning the fight, but had an equal amount of bruises and scratches.

The two dragons charged at each other, and not seeing any other way to stop them, Spyro jumped in front of Flame and Cynder jumped in front of the other dragon. Flame skidded to a halt when he saw the hooded figure, but his opponent uppercut Cynder with his right paw, sending her flying into a house wall, leaving cracks and indents. Spyro turned around and saw Cynder in a crumbled heap. All the rage, all the fury inside him surfaced as his scales darkened. "CYNDER!" He shouted, halfway through the word his voice became distorted and unnatural, as if the past purple dragons were speaking through him.

His eyes had no pupils, they just glowed a vibrant white and he stared at the now frightened dragon. "You shouldn't have done that." Spyro said making the dragons around him cower in fear.

He took a step forward, at the same time the other dragon took a step back. Then Spyro disappeared, leaving only the cloak behind, and reappeared in front of the dragon. The anonymous dragon faltered, and then glared at the black dragon, clearly misjudging his strength. The green colored dragon threw a punch, aimed strait at Spyro's snout. With a flick of his wrist, Spyro caught the paw, making a look of fear fall upon the, now quivering, dragon's face. Spyro smirked, and twisted his paw making the dragon's wrist bend in the wrong way and break. The dragon screamed a cry of pain, and Spyro gave a toothy grin. "Spyro, stop!" Flame shouted, noticing that the black scaled beast was his once good friend.

Flame had seen Spyro's dark side before and knew that it was triggered by some form of deep emotional pain. "Silence!" Spyro shouted, redirecting his horrid voice toward Flame.

"He deserves to die for what he did!"

"No, he doesn't. Think about Cynder, think about what she would want!" Flame said while gesturing to Cynder's unconscious body.

Spyro's white eyes fell to the ground and closed as memories of him and Cynder flooded his mind. His forehead began to turn a lighter shade of purple and he disappeared, leaving Flame and hundreds of eyes staring at the convulsing, green dragon that lay before them.

Spyro didn't release dragon time until they were safely in the temple. His scales were back to their normal amethyst and his eyes had pupils again. He didn't have much time though; Cynder's unconscious form was on his back and was dripping blood, fast. He bounded through corridor after corridor, hallway after hallway. Nothing mattered at that point other than Cynder as he headed to the infirmary. He spotted an indigo colored curtain over a doorway. "Finally!" He whispered to himself.

He burst through the curtain and looked for a sign of help. "Hello!" He shouted out.

No later did a pearl colored dragoness wearing nothing but a necklace in the shape of the classical Red Cross, walk in. She noticed the blood dripping from Cynder and her smile faded. "I'll need some help in here!" She screamed into the other room as she ran over to Spyro and lifted Cynder off his back and carefully laid her on her side, on the nearest bed. The blood had already stained big areas of the white sheets, when a mole came in and ran up to the dragoness. "You called?" The mole said in a high pitched voice, obviously young.

"Yes, go get some herbs and red spirit gems. Hurry!" The dragoness said quickly to the mole as she pulled out bandages from a cabinet under the bed.

"I'm on it!" the mole said as he ran into the back room.

The dragoness then began to clean the blood off of her wound with a wet cloth and a bowl of water. Four long, deep gashes were revealed after the nurse finished cleaning the wound, she put the cloth back in the bowl of red stained water, and moved out of the way as the mole came back in with a cart filled with assorted herbs and crystals. The mole began to take the crystals and carefully break them apart over the wound. The crushed fragments shot to the wound and flashed with a brief red light. Not much had changed but that was all the spirit gems could do. The dragoness then began to sprinkle crushed herbs onto the wound, which stopped the bleeding by creating a type of wall. The mole lifted Cynder's back off the bed as the dragoness began to wrap bandages around her back and the gashes. She tightened the bandages and tied them together, then slowly walked over to Spyro. "This isn't good, she's lost a lot of blood and a few of her ribs are broken. The gashes are pretty deep and they aren't in the best places…. Just be prepared for what might happen." She said with a solemn look across her face.

Spyro lowered his head as a way to hide the tears that had begun to flow from his eyes. He could finally be with Cynder, finally be happy, but when it came down to it, he couldn't protect her, and now she was on her death bed. "Go fetch the guardians. Tell them that it's urgent." The dragoness said to her assistant.

The mole exited the room through the door with the curtain slowly and made her way towards the guardians chamber. The dragoness just sat in the opposite side of the room staring at Spyro and Cynder, wishing she could do something else to help them. She watched Spyro weep over the feeble body of Cynder until Terrador walked in followed by Cyril and Volteer. "What's so important that you had to-." He stopped as his eyes fell on Spyro.

Terrador's eyes widened and he stuttered. "S-s…Spyro?" Terrador said as his mouth dropped.

Spyro's head barely turned to where he could see the guardians out of the corner of his eye, and then turned back to the ground. "Yes, Terrador, it's me." Spyro said trying to hide any signs of sadness.

The guardians were awestruck, they had never expected this. The color was completely drained from their faces as they looked at the nurse. She just shrugged, stood up and walked out of the room, looking back at Spyro one last time, before she walked out.

Volteer blinked a few times then walked slowly over to Terrador. "We should leave them alone for now. We can talk to them later." Volteer said in a hushed voice.

Terrador turned and nodded before he motioned the other guardians out and followed behind.

Spyro was alone with Cynder in the infirmary, stroking her forehead lovingly. He sat there well into the night just staring at her, thinking of a way to help her, thinking to all his past adventures and everything that had happened. Then, he remembered one phrase that the past chronicler had said. "The purple dragon can control four elements, including time itself."

Then it hit him like a blow to the face. If he could slow time down, then maybe he could speed it up too. It was a stretch but it just might work.

He stood up and wiped the tears away from his eyes. He focused, not on the usual way he used dragon time, but in the opposite way. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. He felt the familiar pull in his gut; he always got when he used an element, and opened his jaws. A small stream of light blue mist slowly crawled out of his mouth and towards Cynder's bandaged chest. The mist phased through the bandages and Cynder began to breathe deeply, as if she were asleep. She muttered one word. "Spyro."

Spyro smiled and fell onto the bed with Cynder, already asleep.


	3. Chapter 3: Recovery

**The Legend of Spyro: Spirit of a Dragon **

**Ch.3: Recovery**

**AN: Hey guys and welcome back. I've gotten a couple of reviews from you guys and I just want to say thank you! Each review takes a special little place in my heart. If you haven't reviewed yet, please do. I will read and try to respond to all of them. Look at me, sitting here babbling to you about reviews. On with the story already! (spoiler alert) you shall meet an OC!**

The sun slowly peeked over the horizon, as it did every day, and warmed the animals and citizens of Warfang with its forgiving light. The last traces of the night disappeared and were replaced by the signs of the day. The sun shined its light through the infirmary window, making the eyelids of a black dragoness stir. She opened her eyes and tried to sit up when a slight stinging pain shot through her chest. Cynder looked down at her chest and noticed that it was wrapped in bandages. 'What happened yesterday?' she questioned herself.

As soon as the thought went through her mind, a pure white dragoness walked in as if on cue. "You're a lucky dragoness, Cynder." The dragoness said in a sweet voice.

"Not many dragons can survive an injury like that, and much less can get a purple dragon as a mate." The dragoness said with a smile.

"Who are you?" Cynder asked as she looked at the pale dragoness.

"Oh, I'm sorry, allow me to introduce myself. My name is Noelle." She said as she walked over to them.

"Do you know what happened to me?" Cynder said as she gestured to her chest.

"Not really, see Spyro here came rushing in here yesterday and my partner and I, being nurses, took care of you." Noelle said, sitting down next to the bed.

"What was the physical damage?" Cynder questioned again.

"A few of your ribs were broken, and you had deep gashes in some serious places, one extremely close to your jugular, another right over the center of your chest, the third was over your heart and lungs and the last was at the base of your chest." Noelle said as if she had practiced the phrase.

"We honestly thought that you weren't going to make it. But then something happened last night." Noelle said, the last few words dropped to a near whisper as she looked to the base of the bed.

"What?" Cynder asked as she leaned forward, obviously intrigued.

"I don't really know. I was about to come change your bandages last night when I saw Spyro standing over you looking like he was about to do something important. Then when he opened his mouth, some kind of blue mist floated to the wound, and then he collapsed next to you." Noelle explained.

Then Cynder looked to her side and noticed the purple dragon next to her. She blushed at the fact that he had stayed by her all night.

"I couldn't really tell you as well as he could. Ask him when he wakes up." Noelle said as she walked into the other room.

Cynder looked at Spyro's unconscious form and examined him. He had bags over his eyes so she decided not to wake him; so instead, she snuggled up to him and pulled his wing over her body. She closed her eyes and tried to get some more rest.

Terrador was pacing back and forth in the guardians chamber. "How is it possible that they are alive? Volteer do you have anything yet?" The earth guardian said as he looked to his golden friend who had stacks of books around him.

"No, nothing about something like this ever happening." Volteer said as he tossed another book aside and grabbed another one off the stack.

"I don't really think it matters much. All that really matters is that their back." Cyril said, annoyed with how persistent they were being.

"I know, Cyril, but one can't help but wonder." Terrador said as he looked slightly into the air.

Cynder was stirred by a moaning sound. She turned over and saw that Spyro was waking up. She smiled and waited for him to open his eyes. "Morning." Cynder whispered, only centimeters away from his face.

"Cynder! You're awake!" Spyro said as he shot up.

"I am, and it's all because of you!" Cynder said as she jumped forward and put her arms around his neck and her wings around his back.

Spyro melted into the embrace and fresh flow of tears came out of both of their eyes. Cynder felt a slight throbbing pain in her chest, but she didn't care, all she cared about at that moment was Spyro. They parted. Still in each other's paws, Spyro wiped some of her tears away with a paw, and Cynder closed her eyes. They're moment was interrupted, however, by Noelle who walked into the room with fresh bandages in her right paw. "I don't mean to interrupt here. But I need to change Cynder's bandages." She said with an awkward toothy grin.

She was right though, the bandages Cynder had on then were a dark shade of blood red. Cynder stepped off the bed and towards Noelle. "Okay." Cynder said as she smiled.

Noelle then set the bandages on a table to her right and slowly took her, scalpel shaped, tail blade and cut the bandages off. Her eyes widened and she gasped. "What?" Spyro and Cynder asked in unison.

Noelle stepped closer to Cynder's chest and all she saw was the faint scar of four gash marks. "There's barely anything left there." She said as she took Cynder by the shoulders and turned her toward Spyro.

His eyes widened, but then he smiled and looked down slightly. "Spyro, I need you to tell me what you did to Cynder last night." Noelle said slowly.

He looked up, walked over to Noelle and then looked at the scar on Cynder's chest. "I'm not entirely sure. I guess I used a different form of dragon time and sped up the healing." Spyro said looking back at Noelle.

"Well whatever you did, it really worked. She shouldn't be able to move like this…" Noelle said still slightly in shock.

After giving it a moment of thought, Noelle said. "I don't think that she even needs to stay in the infirmary, as long as she takes it easy for one or two days."

Spyro and Cynder looked at her questionably. "Are you sure?" Spyro asked, concerned about Cynder.

Noelle nodded and put her paw on one of the recently healed ribs. "Any pain?" Noelle asked Cynder, looking up at her.

"Not very much, but it is kind of sore." Cynder replied as Noelle backed away.

"She should be fine as long as she doesn't do anything _too_ dangerous." Noelle said while smiling.

"Okay, then should we go?" Spyro asked as he turned his head to Cynder.

Cynder nodded her head once and the two walked out together.

"Such a cute couple." Noelle said once the two were out of earshot.

Spyro and Cynder were walking down the hallways of the dragon temple, when Spyro asked. "So what should we do now?"

"We should probably go to the guardians, tell them everything that's happened." Cynder said as she looked down the hallway.

"That sounds good." Spyro agreed.

The two then began to walk down the corridors toward the guardians chamber, looking at the many mosaics that painted the walls. They walked in silence occasionally looking at each other and then quickly looking in the opposite direction. They awkward moment didn't last long however, they came to a large door with the four elemental symbols engraved in the mahogany. Spyro raised his paw and knocked three times. The gruff voice of Terrador could be heard on the other side. "Come in."

Spyro looked back at Cynder one more time before Spyro reached for the metal handle and pushed the door in, revealing a grand round room with windows, other doors that lead to other parts of the temple, and a small circular pool, that was filled with a fluorescent liquid, in the middle. Spyro and Cynder walked in to the newly refurbished guardians chamber, looking mostly at the three large dragons they were stepping towards. "Sit down, young dragons." Terrador said as he walked towards Spyro and Cynder, followed by Cyril and Volteer.

"Now… Can you two tell me why you've been gone for almost a year, and why you didn't come back?" Terrador asked while he closed his eyes, apparently annoyed by their absence.

Spyro drew in some air. "After the battle with Malefor, when the world was breaking apart, we had to stop it. I'm guessing that after we fought him _and _brought the world back together, we had used so much of our strength that we were unconscious for the rest of the time." Spyro explained.

"After we woke up, we flew back to Warfang, and the rest you already know." Cynder said, shifting between looking at the guardians and Spyro.

"Yes, but how did you get injured?" Volteer asked, looking skeptically at Cynder.

"There was a fight in the courtyard. Flame and another dragon were fighting and we tried to stop them. The other dragon went after Cynder and rammed her into a wall. Then I rushed her to the infirmary." Spyro said, not wanting to explain the fact that he lost control of his darker side again.

"Well…that doesn't _entirely_ explain it, but all that matters is that your back." Terrador said to them, giving a warm smile.

"Volteer?" Terrador said, turning to the golden dragon next to him.

"Yes, Terrador?" He replied as he turned to the green dragon next to him.

"Go through the city and tell dragons, cheetahs, and moles to meet at the courtyard in front of the temple. Be hasty." Terrador said quickly, obviously exited.

Volteer nodded then flew out one of the many balconies that planted the walls. "Spyro, Cynder, follow me." Terrador ordered, as he walked over to one of the many doors and opened it, revealing a staircase.

Volteer was soaring over the many houses and shops of Warfang as he bellowed. "Citizens of Warfang, meet in the courtyard at the front of the temple immediately, we wish to show you something that we guarantee, will be worth your while!"

Dragons began to fly towards the dragon temple followed slowly by the moles and cheetahs, some cheetahs ran but elderly or young walked. A large crowd began to form at the base of the dragon temple; all the creatures were conversing to one another, curious of what the guardians had in store for them.

The stairs seemed to go on for miles. Terrador had led them to staircases that, oppositely, lead to the roof of the temple. "So why are all the citizens gathering at the temple?" Spyro asked as he looked out one of the windows that littered the wall.

"We're going to show all of them that you two are alive. They have a right to know and it's easier than just going out in public and saying it." Terrador explained, looking back at the two.

Spyro looked back out one of the windows, he felt bad that all these people thought they were dead; he wanted to give them hope again.

The seemingly endless staircase came to a long, damp, hallway with a door that could barely fit an adult dragon, at the other end. Terrador walked slowly over to the door, followed by Spyro and Cynder, and pulled a strange looking key out of the space behind his wing joint. It was then that Spyro noticed a small keyhole under the handle of the door. Terrador inserted the small key into the hole and turned it to the right. The door clicked and Terrador pushed it open

Sunlight burst through the doorway and caused the three of them to squint, the fresh air replaced the cold damp air of the room before, making Spyro have a warm feeling inside him. The three dragons stepped out of the doorway and heard the sound of hundreds of talking creatures.

Terrador stepped forward and looked at all the people, which didn't do anything at all. An ear piercing roar broke from Terrador's maw and silenced them. "Citizens of Warfang, we have gathered you all here to announce the return of two very important dragons. These dragons have preformed feats that many of us cannot. This first dragon has been through many triumphs and many failures; he defeated the Terror of the Skies, killed the ape king Gaul and helped defeat the dark master, known as Malefor. I give you… SPYRO!" Spyro stepped forward, and the crowd remained silent, until dragons slowly started clapping and cheering, ecstatic that he was alive.

Terrador began to speak again as the crowd died down. "And aiding him on his quest; the dragoness that without, we wouldn't be here. She has endured many hardships and always came through. I give you… CYNDER!" Cynder was sweating, she had never been this nervous and felt like she was about to collapse.

But despite that, she walked forward. The crowd erupted in cheers once more as the other guardians flew up and took their places beside Terrador. The feeling that Spyro and Cynder had at that moment was amazing, it brought smiles to their faces, the fact that the citizens of Warfang could live in peace.

The guardians began to walk back to the door and down the stairs, the two war heroes followed, not looking back, the five dragons stepped into the door and disappeared.

**AN: So what did you think? Tell me in a review or PM me! I am happy to announce that this will be the last chapter where they story is so action less. The next chapter, the story will really kick off. Until then! Peace out!**


	4. Chapter 4: Dreams

**The Legend of Spyro: Spirit of a Dragon**

**Ch. 4: Dreams**

**AN: ok, first things first. I'd like to thank ALL of you, for reading my story and leaving some reviews, although there aren't many, they still make me happy. The story is already at a shocking 200 hits, I had no idea that y'all liked my story so much. The story kind of kicks off in this chapter- ugh I'm babbling again. Btw, you will see the return of a certain yellow dragonfly and the entry of five OC's! Read to find out!**

At the end of the long day, the two heroes were exhausted. After getting back into the temple and having to corral an endless amount of fanatics back outside, the five dragons decided that it was time to check in.

Spyro and Cynder were slumping tiredly up the stairs along with Cyril, hoping that their day was going to be over soon.

The sun had just set by the time the three dragons had made it to the top of the stairs and to a hallway with two doors on the left and right. "Spyro, your room will be on the right. You'll find everything you'll need for the time being and other essentials. Cynder, your room will be on the-." He said as he motioned to the left.

"On the right, we'll be sharing a room, Cyril." Cynder cut in as she stepped closer to Spyro.

Cyril turned his head so that he was staring at the two dragons with his ice blue eyes. He didn't have to look down as they were almost as tall as him, being he was the shorter of the guardians. "Ah… I see. Grown up already huh?" he said with a smile that was tinged with sadness.

"As you two wish." Cyril said, the last words dropping to a whisper as he walked back down the stairs.

Cyril missed the two playful young dragons that used to live at the temple, but now they were older, almost full grown to be exact. He frowned as he watched those old memories flow through his mind, and came to a stop at the base of the stairs and opened the dark brown, wooden door, to see Volteer in the guardian's chamber. "What's wrong, old friend?" Volteer said as he looked up at the gloomy face of the ice guardian.

"It's nothing. Just that Spyro and Cynder are all grown up; it seems like only a few days ago when he first arrived at the temple." Cyril said as he let out a sigh.

"I know, my friend. But it had to happen sometime." The electricity guardian said as Cyril joined him.

Spyro pushed open the wooden door and stepped into the room. The stone floor clicked as Spyro's and Cynder's claws hit it, causing the noise to echo throughout the room. The stars and moon lit up the room to where they could see where they were going and find everything.

The room could easily fit the both of them and would make a nice place to stay. There was a desk with an ample supply of ink and paper, a balcony that overlooked the city, a bed that would fit them easily, a large chest for personal belongings, and lastly, a few shelves to put books and writings on.

Spyro walked onto the balcony and let the cool wind roll across his scales, which made his eyes close in contentment. Cynder walked out on the balcony and rubbed up against Spyro's side making him open his eyes and smile at her. "We should probably get some sleep." Cynder whispered into Spyro's ear.

All Spyro did was nod and put his wing around Cynder's back, as they walked back inside and towards the straw filled mattress. Cynder stepped up onto the bed and curled up, as if to keep warm and Spyro stepped up to the mattress then curled up around Cynder, placing a wing back on her body and his tail on top of hers.

"Goodnight Spyro" Cynder said as she snuggled up to his warm body.

"Goodnight Cynder" Spyro whispered.

That was the last the two said to each other, as they were both already asleep.

Hours later, Spyro began to grimace and stir, calming down as the dream he was having came to a more pleasant part.

Spyro was in some sort of white void, in which nothing could be seen for miles, just a white nothingness. "Hello?" Spyro shouted to the void, hoping someone would answer.

As if that were some kind of command word, things began to materialize around him. Bookcases, pedestals and finally, a giant clear hourglass, with fluorescent blue sand in the middle of a circular room appeared to him.

He recognized this as the Chronicler's study, where the events of the dragon species were recorded and placed. "Hello? Chronicler?" Spyro said, looking around the room.

"Yes I'm here" a voice said as a door at the far side of the room opened.

Spyro looked in that direction shocked to not hear the usual voice of the old dragon he knew as the Chronicler. A cyan blue dragon stepped out with the usual Chronicler outfit, satchels lining his sides and a large glowing blue crystal on his neck.

Spyro's eyes widened, the one difference, other than the voice that made Spyro speechless. He had watched this dragon die right in front of him, yet he was standing right there. He could never forget the caring fire red eyes of the fire guardian, who had not changed much other than the color of his scales and a few wrinkles. "Ig…Ignitus?" Spyro stuttered, not believing what he was seeing.

The ex-fire guardian just smiled and nodded his head. "It's good to see you Spyro." Ignitus chuckled.

Spyro had tears in his eyes, he had thought Ignitus was dead and to see him again only made things more complicated. Spyro didn't even know he was running until he hit the Chronicler head on and knocked him off his feet.

This didn't even feel like a dream to Spyro. He felt like he was actually back on the white isle. Ignitus stood back up and held his student in a warm embrace. "Ig…Ignitus… I... I thought." Spyro said between sobs.

"I'll explain everything to you Spyro. But first, there are more important matters to attend to." Ignitus whispered as he pulled Spyro away.

Spyro sniffed then wiped away the tears from his eyes, he was sure that this was not a dream. "First, Spyro, you need to know that, sadly, your adventure is not over yet." Ignitus said as he closed his eyes.

Spyro's eyes widened. "What? I thought that by killing Malefor then peace would be restored!" Spyro exclaimed as his anger slightly rose.

"I know, I know. Just hear me out. Malefor was an evil dragon, but no one is just born evil, someone or something must have corrupted him or taught him to be evil. I think that this may also be somehow linked to your dark side, Spyro." Ignitus explained.

"Okay, I get that, but it still doesn't explain how you're alive, much less how you look like the Chronicler." Spyro said, gesturing to Ignitus' new scale color.

"Ah yes. Let me explain. By defeating Malefor, you two started a new age and the Chronicler needed someone to chronicle that age, knowing that I had been a close friend of you and Cynder and that I had a vast amount of knowledge, he chose me." Ignitus explained.

"Okay, but how are you alive?" Spyro asked, still not understanding.

"In the belt of fire, when I was about to perish, I felt a burst of energy and all my wounds were healed. The next thing I knew, I was on the white isle." Ignitus said as if he knew Spyro was going to ask that.

Spyro was still a little suspicious; this could still be a dream. "This is not a dream, Spyro, we are actually talking face to face." Ignitus said as if he were reading Spyro's thoughts.

"Okay, tell me more about this 'new evil'" Spyro said, the subject finally sinking in.

"I do not know much about it, but if I did I would tell you. Time is short, you must return soon." Ignitus said. Looking at a sundial that had a shadow; regardless of the non sunny room.

"What? I can't leave! What if I have questions? I can't just fly here whenever I feel like it!" Spyro said as the room around him began to fade.

Ask Cynder. I sense a strong bond between the two of you. Don't let her go Spyro, she's a smart dragoness." Ignitus said with a wink as his body began to dissolve.

"Ignitus! Wait!" Spyro screamed as his mentor was almost completely gone.

"Goodbye, Spyro, I'll see you again soon, I promise." Ignitus' last words echoed through the void as Spyro's body went numb.

Spyro woke in cold sweat and slowly sat up, as to not wake Cynder. Spyro slowly rose off the bed and tiptoed to the balcony and looked up at the shimmering cosmos above his head. 'You've got to be kidding me, Ignitus.' He thought to himself.

Cynder stirred, feeling the absence of the purple dragon, she sat up and looked around tiredly. Her eyes fell upon the purple dragon's figure as she looked out to the balcony. She had seen Spyro do this many times and knew that something was bothering him.

She got out of the bed and stretched, her bones popping and shifting. She made her way over to Spyro and asked. "Spyro? What's wrong?"

"It's nothing, I'll tell you in the morning."Spyro said, not looking away from the starry sky.

Cynder was a little bummed by this, but shrugged it off. "Well don't you think you should get back to bed then?" Cynder asked.

Spyro nodded and turned around. Cynder was met by a warm smile, which made her nuzzle him to the side of his head, making him feel slightly better.

The two walked back onto the bed and settled down the way they had, before they were aroused. Spyro however didn't make it back to the land of dreams until much later, he was still stuck on the fact that their journey wasn't over yet and that he had to put more people into harm's way. But when he did slip back into his dreams, he didn't have long to stay in. The sun had already risen.

The sounds of the morning hit the dragon city like an orchestra of nature. Birds chirped, small animals scurried, and the early birds of Warfang began to emerge.

The brilliant light crawled through the balcony, casting a yellow glow across the room. Spyro squinted and opened his eyes, looking across the room as he wiped the sleep away from his eyes.

Spyro sat up slowly and hopped off the bed, stretching his joints as he landed.

He looked back at Cynder, the slow rise and fall of her chest indicating that she was still fast asleep. Spyro smiled at this, then started to approach her but then remembered what had happened the night before. He frowned at the thought, though the news was saddening, he needed to tell Cynder and the guardians.

He padded over to Cynder's side and gently nuzzled her forehead. "Cynder…Cynder… wake up." Spyro whispered, his response being the quiet moan of Cynder.

"Hmmm?" She mumbled eyes slightly ajar but still half asleep.

Spyro just smiled and rolled his eyes. Spyro gently licked her cheek, causing her to stir and open her eyes fully. "Morning." Spyro said with a smile.

She smiled back at him and butted his jaw with the top of her head playfully, making him chuckle.

She pushed her body up with her forepaws and looked at Spyro, who was looking at the ground, as if deep in thought. "Hey. You want to tell me what's been bothering you?" Cynder said in a sweet voice, catching his attention.

Spyro nodded. "Yeah, but it includes the guardians as well." Spyro said looking back up at her.

"Okay, do you want to go now?" Cynder asked, stepping off the bed and closer to him.

"Yeah, it's pretty important." Spyro said with a serious look on his face.

The two proceeded down the stairs and to the guardian's chamber in silence, not wanting to pester Spyro about what happened, Cynder remained silent.

They approached a large brown, wooden door, with the four elemental symbols on it. Spyro raised a paw but faltered, gathering his strength again, he knocked on the hard surface. "Come in." The two heard Cyril, the ice guardian, say.

The two dragons entered the large round room slowly and were immediately greeted by a small yellow ball of light that flew strait into their faces as soon as they entered. "Spyro! Buddy you made it!" they cocky voice of the dragonfly, Sparx, said.

"Sparx! It's been a while…" Spyro started to say, but was interrupted by a sharp jab to the eye, from Sparx.

"Ahhh… Sparx, What was that for?" Spyro said while rubbing his eye.

"Don't _EVER_ scare me like that again!" Sparx said pointing to Spyro dejectedly.

Spyro just smiled and nodded in agreement. "I see we still have the evil she dragoness with us. Bummer." Sparx said, crossing his arms.

"Hey! Watch it!" Spyro countered as Cynder looked away.

"Wow, what's gotten into you, Spyro?" Sparx said, backing up.

"If I'm not mistaken, those two are now mates." Cyril interjected from the background.

Sparx turned his head slowly, as if he was being hunted and he didn't want to get caught. He looked at the smiling Cyril, then back at the two slightly smaller dragons. He made a pointing motion at him then Cynder with his hand. Spyro nodded, and Sparx fell to the floor, unconscious. He had fainted.

When Sparx came to, he had a massive headache. He opened his small eyes and looked at the three dragons that surrounded him. "ugghh… what happened?" he mumbled.

"You fainted, because we told you Spyro and Cynder were mates." Cyril said as he backed up and Sparx took to the air again.

"How long was I out?" Sparx asked, rubbing his head.

"About ten seconds." Spyro said very plainly.

Sparx sighed. "Great. Pretty soon, there'll be little hatchlings running around here." Sparx said as he made shooing motions with his hands again.

"Sparx!" Spyro and Cynder said in unison, blushing at the comment.

"Never mind, ignore what I just said." Sparx chuckled.

Cyril just smiled and shook his head. "So, I'm sure that Sparx would like to catch up with the two of you, so why don't you go into town and…" Cyril started to say, but was cut off.

"Actually, there's something that I need to tell you guys. Call the other guardians in." Spyro said as his voice dropped down to a gloomy tone.

Cyril put on a serious face and nodded. He walked into a door with a metal knocker and returned moments later with the other guardians in tow.

"What is it Spyro?" Terrador asked as the tree guardians sat in front of the two dragons and the dragonfly.

Spyro closed his eyes again. "Last night, the chronicler decided to pay me a visit again." Spyro said as he looked to the three guardians.

Volteer asked the question that they were all thinking. "What for?"

"It's not shocking _what _he said, it's _who_ said it. It wasn't the usual chronicler. It was Ignitus." Spyro said as he looked back down to the floor.

Gasps flew all around the room, all except Spyro. "What do you mean?" Terrador asked in a hushed voice.

Spyro spent the next thirty minutes briefing them on his visit to the White Isle. He explained the part about Ignitus being the Chronicler, and how he was alive, and then finally about him and Cynder having to fight another great evil.

The room was silent. Nobody had expected this, but there Spyro said it, right to their faces. "But I thought that, if you defeated Malefor then peace would be restored." Sparx said to Spyro causing him to look in Sparx's direction.

"That's what we thought, but apparently there is one more that the chronicler didn't tell us about. One last evil that we need to defeat." Spyro said looking back at the guardians.

"Well do you know anything else?" Terrador asked Spyro.

Spyro shook his head. "I have been giving it some thinking though, if we go to the mountain of Malefor, then we might find some clues to this other evil."

"Well when do you think that you should go?" Volteer asked, cocking his head to the side.

"The sooner the better, I guess." Spyro forced out of his mouth, he was really hoping to have some time alone with Cynder.

"Well in that case, you'll need some company." Cyril said with a smile.

"What?" Cynder asked, wondering what he was talking about.

"You really didn't think that we were going to send you three alone this time." Terrador said as Cyril flew out of one of the balconies.

"Where's he going?" Spyro asked as he looked up after the ice guardian.

"You'll see." Volteer said with a mischievous smile.

It didn't take Cyril long to return, but it still racked the nerves of the two dragons. The first thing that they noticed was that Cyril had five other dragons with him.

The first, an earth dragon with luminous, rough green scales, underbelly and horns the color of tree bark, deep brown eyes, and a muscley build. His horns were shaped like a ram's would be and he had a tail blade shaped like a leaf, much similar to Spyro's. He stepped forward. "Hi, my name's Corron." He said with a smile, he had a calm voice, as if he didn't know that he was speaking to the purple dragon.

The second stepped forward; he was another male that had fire red scales, a golden underbelly, and horns that were jagged and sharp. He had orange eyes that pierced through his body as he said. "My name is Eldrid." He said as his flame shaped tail blade swished back and forth

The third stepped forward; she was a cool, cyan blue dragoness with faint streaks of blue down her sides and what looked like frozen horns, a dark purple underbelly and eyes, and a tail blade that was in the shape of icicles protruding from one another. "My name is Akitla." She said with a smile that showed compassion.

The fourth stepped forward; he was a golden dragon, with light turquoise eyes, black underbelly, horns and wing membrane. His horns curved slightly down as they went back and then curved back up. His tail blade looked as if it were charged with electricity, it being in the shape of three small curved daggers. "My name is Validus." He said in an energetic voice, obviously young.

The fifth and final stepped forward; she was a slim white dragoness with periwinkle eyes and a light blue underbelly, horns and wing membrane. Her horns were long and curved up as they went back, and she had faint indigo marks on her left shoulder, resembling the wind. "My name is Sapientia." She said in a calm, relaxing voice.

"These young dragons are the trainees to become guardians. They will be accompanying you on your journey."

**AN: This took me forever to write! I really hope that you like it. So who are these new dragons that Spyro and Cynder meet? I'm not going to tell you, so ha! Your just gonna have to wait until the next chapter. If your still fuzzy on how the new characters look PM me or leave a review and I'll get back to ya. BYE!**


	5. Chapter 5: Acquaintances

**The Legend of Spyro: Spirit of a Dragon**

**AN: Hello and welcome to ch. 5 of Soad. Sorry that I haven't updated in a while but I've been kind of busy, my family came to visit this weekend and I couldn't get to a computer, and to add on that, I've been really sick and didn't feel up to it. I hope that you enjoy this chapter and I will update faster.**

**Ch. 5: Acquaintances**

Silence was spread all throughout the vast dragon temple. Nothing was said, nothing could be heard, just silence.

The silent moment lasted for a few minutes before a bewildered purple dragon uttered two words. "Guardian trainees?" Spyro said as he looked at the five dragons before him.

"Yes Spyro. These five extraordinary dragons shall be accompanying you on your hazardous quest; we cannot deal with losing the two of you again so we think that our next best should go with you." Volteer yapped in his usual energetic voice.

"You know we can take care of ourselves Volteer." Cynder said, raising an eyebrow at his decision.

"Yes I am well attentive of that true fact. We're just sending them along with you as some extra help, so nothing dreadful happens." Volteer replied again using a fast, rushed voice.

"Nevertheless they're going with you. You'll never know what you could encounter on your way and we want to make sure that you two come back this time." Terrador said in his gruff monotone voice.

"My question is how. I thought that all the eggs at the dragon temple were destroyed all those years ago, and why is there a trainee for a wind guardian? And why don't we have one now?" Spyro asked, looking at the guardian in amazement.

"For your first question, we _thought _that the eggs were destroyed." Cyril said with a smile.

"These five dragons came to Warfang along with many others. Apparently a few of the female dragons took their eggs away from the temple and raised them." Volteer interjected.

"They were living in secluded areas such as caves, in ravines or cliffs. Until one day when they came across a small camping village, they asked for the status on the war and got news that it was over." Cyril cut back, looking at Volteer with a frown.

"They flew strait to Warfang and have been living peacefully in city ever since." Volteer said as he shot a menacing glare at the ice blue dragon.

"Speaking of peace, why don't you let it fall upon you two? I swear it's like working with hatchlings." Terrador said as he shook his head in disapproval.

"To answer your other questions, we have a wind guardian trainee because of the repopulation. A lot of wind dragons came back along with the trainees. And for your last question, we feel that we need to exploit the other elements and wind dragons were the best choice." Cyril said as he calmed down.

"You do not have to leave immediately but I suggest that you prepare. Get anything that you'll need; armor, supplies, food, just make sure that you can survive for a while out there." Terrador said as he left the room, only leaving behind the echoes of his footsteps.

"Who knows? Maybe all of you will become good friends." Cyril said with a smile, as he traced Terrador's path.

"I shall leave you alone to become acquainted now. Goodbye, my friends." Volteer said as he too walked through the big wooden door and out of sight.

The five dragons walked up to Spyro, Cynder and Sparx and looked at them perplexedly. "What now? You already know our names, and we already know yours." The light blue dragoness, Akitla said.

"I don't think that we will need much on the journey, being that we are only going to investigate." The green dragon, Corron said as he looked at the other dragons.

A mischievous smile crawled onto Spyro's face. "Why don't we go down to the training room then? I'd love to see what you guys can do." Spyro said as he motioned to the hallway to his right with his head.

Cynder rolled her eyes. 'Always eager to train. He'll never change will he?' Cynder thought with a faint smile on her muzzle.

"I'm up for it. Corron?" Eldrid said as he turned to the earth dragon next to him.

"Okay you guys want to go?" Corron said as he looked to the remaining dragons to his left.

Akitla just nodded her head with a look of triumph. "When would I say no to that?" Validus said, clearly over confident.

"Sapientia?" Corron said as he tried to look into her eyes which were cast to the floor.

She looked up and met his dark brown irises. After a moment of consideration. "Okay" She said with a smile.

"Well then let's go." Spyro said as he made his way to the hallway.

The renovations on the new dragon temple had really amazed Spyro. He had noticed that everything was completely repaired. "How did the dragon temple get fixed this fast? I thought that Malefor's forces had almost completely destroyed it." Spyro said to Corron, who was on his right.

"After the war, many people had lost their homes so they moved to Warfang; apparently a lot of them were carpenters and workers. They agreed to help us rebuild the city, which is another reason why the population is bigger." Corron explained.

Spyro noticed that the walls looked like they were made of stronger material and that there was stain glass figures of dragons in the windows. He passed one stain glass picture that caught his eye; it was a picture of him, Cynder and Malefor fighting in the core of the earth. There was an engraving under the picture. 'In memory of Spyro and Cynder.' Spyro sighed. 'They probably need to fix that' he thought to himself.

"What's wrong Spyro?" Cynder said as she caught up to the purple dragon.

"It's nothing." Spyro said as he forced a half smile on his face.

By that time they had reached a large square shaped dome, the arena. "Who wants to go first?" Spyro said, pushing the previous subject out of his head.

"I'd like to see what the mighty purple dragon can do." Eldrid said as he stepped forward. A smirk tapped to his face.

"Alright then." Spyro said as he put his battle face on.

The two took their sides opposite of one another. "I want a nice clean sparring mach. Elements, claws and teeth are allowed, just no extreme injuries." Corron said from the middle of the ring.

The two dragons nodded in a silent agreement. "Ready."Corron called as Spyro crouched.

"Set." Eldrid was smiling.

"Spar!" Corron shouted as he jumped out of the ring.

No later did Corron jump out of the ring, Eldrid's body was already incased in flames, charging towards Spyro in a comet dash. Spyro sidestepped him, covering his tail in a thin layer of ice as he swiped it under the flaming dragon.

Eldrid stumbled over Spyro's tail making him loose his concentration and the flames dissipate into the air. He stabbed his tail into the ground, steadying him. He turned gracefully to see the purple dragon charging at him full speed. Seeing the hazard he charged toward Spyro as well.

Eldrid thought that they were going to go all out in a clash of claws and teeth, but to his surprise, Spyro dived down into the earth, disappearing from sight. Eldrid stopped at this and looked around, nothing. Then the room began to rumble and Spyro burst out from under Eldrid, making the dragon fly into the air in a heap of red scales and chunks of rock and dirt.

Eldrid landed outside the ring, dragons crowded all around him. He stood up and shook off the dirt. "Umm…I think Spyro won." Akitla said with a lop sided smile, looking back at the Purple dragon.

"Yeah. I'll try harder next time." Eldrid said, as he walked over to Spyro.

"Nice match Spyro." Eldrid said with a sporty smile.

"You too." Spyro said with a nod of his head.

"Okay my turn." Akitla said with a toothy grin on her face.

"Very well." Spyro said as he brushed sweat off his forehead with a paw.

He made his way over to the other side of the ring. "Okay same rules as the last time." Corron said as he once again stood in the center of the arena.

"Ready." Akitla stood opposite of Spyro with a cocky smile on her face.

"Set." Corron looked back at the two.

"Spar!"

Akitla closed her eyes and rose into the air, for what looked like would be an ice fury. But instead of releasing all the energy, she fell to the ground and spun, creating an ice like tornado.

Spyro put a wing to his face to shield from the cold air. She was gone; Akitla was nowhere to be seen around the arena. Spyro looked around, seeing only a thin layer of frost all around the arena.

Then his eyes widened. He remembered this trick. Spyro jumped back, just in time to see a dazed Akitla crash into the arena floor. She jumped up and shot a shard of ice strait at the purple dragons head.

He reared back, and then shot a torrent of heat from his maw, melting the block and charging towards Akitla. She took in a large breath of air and released a storm of ice, meeting with the fire in the middle of the arena and causing the room to be shrouded in a thick mist.

The spectating dragons looked into the arena with interest, trying to find the slightest glimmer of scales.

The mist parted, revealing a tuckered out Spyro and Akitla. They were both breathing hard but the battle wasn't over yet. In a last inch effort, Akitla charged at Spyro.

Spyro calmed down and shifted his body slightly to the right, awaiting his opponent. Akitla came onto Spyro, making him activate dragon time. Time slowed down around Spyro and he stepped to the right and flipped onto her back, putting his paw on the back of her neck and standing on her back, pinning her. He deactivated dragon time.

The others were all amazed, mouths wide open at the last part, Cynder of course had seen Spyro in action and knew what he was capable of.

Spyro stepped off of Akitla and offered her a paw. She took it with a wry grin and stood up next to Spyro. The two walked tiredly over to the others and sat down. "Cynder… why don't… you go… next." Spyro huffed in between breaths.

Cynder walked up to him and nuzzled the side of his head. "Okay." She said as she looked to the remaining dragons.

"Anyone?" Cynder said looking between Validus and Sapientia.

"Sapientia… why don't you go?" Akitla said, still recovering from her match.

Sapientia looked up at her friend. "Okay." She said as she and Cynder made their ways to the ring.

"You know the rules." Corron said from the other side of the room.

"Ready." Sapientia had a blank look on her face

"Set" Cynder smirked

"Spar!"

As soon as the words left his lips, Cynder let an ear rattling screech of fear come out of her maw. The other guardian trainees covered their ears in fear, but Sapientia just charged toward Cynder in a flurry of white and light blue scales.

Cynder released her scream and side stepped, barely missing Sapientia by an inch. No one could withstand her fear; it surprised her that she was so unaffected. Nevertheless she shot a claw coated in poison at the wind dragon, and was once again gracefully avoided.

Sapientia blew a torrent of wind at Cynder causing her to fly back in recoil, despite Cynder's mastery over the wind element. Sapientia flew down to the ground where Cynder was and put a claw to her neck, pinning her.

The match was over in seconds. Sapientia got off of Cynder and walked out, leaving a group of perplexed dragons and a dragonfly in the room. "What's her problem?" Sparx asked Akitla, as Sapientia walked around the corner.

"She's been through a lot, her family was killed during the war and she's a really shy dragoness." Akitla whispered to Sparx, with a sad look on her face.

"Hmmm" Sparx mumbled, looking back in Sapientia's direction.

"I guess that's the end of the training session." Spyro said as he walked out of the room, followed closely by Cynder and the other guardian trainees.

"The day had reached its mid point by the time the other dragons and the dragonfly had met back up with Sapientia back in the guardian's chamber.

"We probably shouldn't leave today. By the time we get there it'll be nightfall, and we won't have any time to do anything there."Eldrid said as he looked to the others.

"I know, we should leave first thing tomorrow morning." Spyro said as he looked out a window and at the slowly moving sun.

"Okay, then we should all be ready and out in the courtyard in front of the temple by sunrise." Corron said as he gestured out to the front of the temple.

His words earned him a nod from the other dragons, all except Sapientia. Eldrid noticed this and looked at the dragoness with worry, wondering if he could do something for the wind dragoness.

The dragons began to disappear to their respective rooms, leaving Eldrid alone in the guardian's chamber. 'Why is she like this? Why does she constantly push people away?' Eldrid thought to himself as he walked back to his room.

He opened the large wooden door and walked towards his bed. He lied down but didn't try to get any sleep. He just lay there thinking about Sapientia. He lied there well into the night, until the moon was high.

He stood up and shook off, stepping his way onto the balcony. 'Why can't I stop thinking about her? I can't be falling for her, can I?' He thought as he looked down to the woods below him. He spotted Sapientia walking towards the trees and bushes.

He raised an eyebrow. 'What is she doing?' He thought once again as he stood up on the railing and hopped off into the air, gliding down to the ground.

He began to follow her deep into the depths of the woods. He could only wonder where she was going. He followed her for what seemed like an eternity until they came to a clear lake, filled with fish.

Sapientia looked at her reflection in the water and sighed. She closed her eyes and whispered, "I'm sorry mom, dad, Orion." A single tear fell out of the corner of her eye as she said the last word.

"Who are they?" Eldrid asked, making him known to her.

She jumped around in a fighting pose, but calmed down when she saw Eldrid. "Oh… they were my family." She said quietly as she looked back at her reflection.

"Is everything okay?" he asked he stepped forward.

He was answered by a hysterical Sapientia crashing into him, crying her eyes out. "T-t-they're… G-g-gone. T-t-they're… A-all… D-dead." Sapientia sobbed into his chest.

"Shhhh. It's okay. Everything's fine now. Don't cry." Eldrid said in a caring voice as he draped a wing around her back, and rubbed the back of her head with a paw.

"No! Everything's not fine. I don't have anybody left!" Sapientia sobbed.

"You've got us. What about Akitla, Corron, Validus, or even Spyro and Cynder." Eldrid said as he tried to make her feel better.

"I only know Akitla; the others are like strangers to me." Sapientia cried into his chest.

"You've got me." Eldrid said as he pulled her head up to face his.

"We don't know each other very well but that doesn't mean we can't be friends, or even-." He caught himself before he said it.

"Or even what?" Sapientia asked, the tears on her face drying.

Eldrid sighed. "Or even more." He said as he looked into her periwinkle eyes.

Sapientia smiled. "Do you really mean that?" She asked intent on getting an answer out of him.

"Yeah." He said as he blushed and looked away.

She smiled, and planted a kiss on his cheek. "Thanks, I really needed that. C'mon, we need to get back to sleep. We've got a big day tomorrow." She said as she started to walk back towards the dragon temple.

He smiled and followed her back to his balcony where he was about to jump back up and try to get some sleep, when Sapientia asked him something strange. "Hey, um. Can… can I sleep with you tonight?"

His face turned a very dark shade of red. "Uhh, sure. I don't mind." He stuttered as he jumped up onto the balcony, followed closely by Sapientia.

He walked over to the bed and watched Sapientia curl up in front of him. He lied down next to her trying not to make things more awkward then they already were.

He was blushing like mad; he had never been this close to a girl before. His thoughts were interrupted however, by a loud shivering noise. He looked over and saw Sapientia shaking. He moved closer and put a wing around her back once again, making her shivering come to a close and making her shift closer to him.

He sighed; he put all thoughts aside and fell into a deep, peaceful sleep.

**AN: ssssssooooooo what did you think. This was my favorite chapter to write so far because of the action part and that little romance scene. Again I am sorry for the slow update, but I couldn't get to a computer, with all the family and the sickness. Tell me what you think though in a review or PM me, until next time! Chao! **


	6. Chapter 6: Exploration

**The Legend of Spyro: Spirit of a Dragon**

**AN: UGHHHHH IT HAS BEEN FOREVER! Hey guys! What's up? As you may have guessed, this is chapter six and I am super excited. Again thank you for all the reviews and comments you have left, I love to see that you guys like my story. Speaking of that, this story has already made it to over 1000 hits which makes me feel all fuzzy inside! :3 And again I am sorry that I can't update very often but I don't own a computer. So without further adieu, ON WITH THE STORY!**

**Ch. 6: Exploration**

Twilight stretched over Warfang, giving a faint light over the buildings and trees, giving all the living things slight warmth. Five dragons stood in the main courtyard in front of the dragon temple, looking as if something were bothering them or if something was giving them worry. "Where are they?" Akitla asked as she stomped a paw into the crisp brown dirt.

"I don't know. But they better het here soon, we've got to leave." Corron said, as he sighed at the absence of his friend, the serene fire dragon Eldrid.

The sun began to peek over the horizon, giving what little light it could to the city, embracing the day even more as it brought creatures closer to reality. The little light shined through a stone window in the dragon temple, stirring a dragon who had found his place on a straw covered mattress, sleeping peacefully.

Eldrid opened an eye, then the other, yawning as he remembered the day before. 'Crap! We have to leave to the mountain of Malefor!' He thought to himself as his eyes widened, shock edging in his stomach.

He looked down to the straw covered mattress when he felt a slight warm touch His eyes widened even more. He noticed that Sapientia was still in his bed, arms and legs wrapped around him and their tails intertwined, her head lying on his golden chest scales. His cheeks turned a darker red as he just stared at her white scales, the gentle light blue of her underbelly, and the slow rise and fall of her chest.

He finally got caught back in reality and put a paw up to her shoulder, which was marked with a symbol that resembled the wind. He moved his paw away from her shoulder and looked closer at it. 'Wonder how that got there. It's probably just a birthmark or something.' He threw the thought away like a crumple piece of paper with something unpleasant on it.

He moved his paw to her shoulder once again and gently shook back and forth. That didn't really help; Sapientia just snuggled closer to him, making almost every part of their bodies touch. He sighed and shook her with slightly more force and whispered her name. "Sapientia… Sapientia!"

She groaned and opened her eyes, barely letting him see her periwinkle irises. "Good morning." She whispered in her quiet, sweet voice.

"C'mon, get up. We need to leave with the others." He snorted playfully as he lifted her head up.

"Shoot! I forgot!" She gasped as she shot up, looking frantically out the window.

"Let's go! We don't want to keep them waiting!" She rambled, as she ran out the door, not pausing for a second.

"Hey, wait up!" He called as he raced after her.

They ran through the hallways, side by side, both breathing hard and rushed. They came to a large mosaic hallway, which they ignored, with the silhouettes of five dragons at the end of it. The two burst into the light and stopped before they crashed into the other dragons.

"Where were you two?" Akitla asked as she walked up to Sapientia and Eldrid, who were both greedily heaving air through their lungs.

Sapientia looked up and blushed, trying not to lose eye contact with Akitla. Her eyes widened, she looked to Eldrid who was blushing as well. 'Oh my god, those two?' she thought as she smiled inwardly.

"Never mind that; we need to get going." She said as she looked back to the others and smiled, her mind not wandering from her assumption.

"Good idea." Spyro said as he crouched, his wings spreading, signaling the others to do the same

The others followed suit and soon enough, they were soaring over the city of Warfang, the only sound was the faint sound of Sparx snoring from Spyro's horn.

Spyro and Cynder took the front of the pack, followed by Corron and Validus, and then Akitla. Sapientia and Eldrid were in the back, flying side by side.

Sapientia was looking ahead; to the clouds and to the ground below, then she looked back at Eldrid, blushing as she smiled at him. He smiled back, earning him a kiss on the cheek. "That's for last night." She said into his ear.

Akitla was watching them out of the corner of her eye, smiling at the two of them. She looked back to the front of the group and smiled to herself, wishing the best to the both of them.

The group of dragons flew for hours; over trees, bushes and creeks. The flight had certainly taken its toll on the dragons; Cynder's eyes drooped and her head fell, dropping a few inches before Spyro swooped under her and fastened his arms around her chest. "Are you okay Cynder? You seem pretty tired." Spyro said with a raised eyebrow.

Cynder yawned and nodded. "Just a little tired that's all. How much longer do you think we'll be flying for?" Cynder asked as she rose back into the air, rubbing her emerald eyes and black scaled face in an attempt to wake herself up.

"Not much longer." Spyro ensured as he pointed to a shadow in the distance, resembling a mutated dragon head.

"Look. Just right there." Spyro called as he looked back at the other worn out dragons.

"Good. I don't think I can fly for much longer." Validus sighed as his aching wings flapped over and over, crying out for him to stop and rest.

The group flopped at the base of the mountain, nearly asleep as soon as they landed. "Everybody get some sleep, we'll go into the mountain in a few hours." Spyro said as he looked to the sun which was well after midday.

Spyro didn't have to tell them twice; as Validus and Akitla were already asleep, Corron was lying on his back breathing hard, and Eldrid and Sapientia were sleeping at opposite sides of the circle. Cynder lied down next to Spyro, looking up at him, making him smile and flop down next to her, rising a slight amount of dust as he landed.

Cynder nuzzled his chin and put her head on her folded paws, Spyro putting his head across her neck and a wing over her back. The two fell into a deep dreamless sleep, and were soon silent.

Not long after they had landed, Akitla opened her eyes and sat up yawing and stretching her worn out muscles, much like a cat would. She looked at the other sleeping dragons and concluded that this was the perfect time to speak to Sapientia alone.

Akitla crept between the sleeping dragons, making silent steps with her cyan blue paws. She had made it past every dragon except Validus, who was directly in front of Sapientia. She began to crawl around the sun gold dragon, being as quiet as she can, but utterly failing when she stepped on a large twig very cliché like. The twig made an involuntary "CRACK" before the sound receded into the day.

Apparently Validus was a light sleeper, because as soon as the twigs unwanted noise rang through the air, his wing shuddered and he started to grumble, muttering something about not getting enough sleep.

Akitla opened her eyes which had closed during the event that she was about to be caught, and resumed stalking towards Sapientia, much like a lion would stalk prey. She reached her target with ease and examined her sleeping form. She brought a paw up to her shoulder and shook with enough force to wake her up, she didn't budge. She tried again but failed once again, though she wasn't surprised, they had been flying all day and she was tired.

With a heavy sigh, Akitla began to drag Sapientia through the underbrush, the tiny thorns prickling their luminous scales but still did not wake up the sleeping wind dragoness. They reached a clearing where they could easily talk without being overheard.

Akitla dropped Sapientia down and turned to look at her, giving a small chuckle when she noticed that she had accidentally dragged her over the forest floor on her face and stomach.

Akitla's thoughts then proceeded to the task at hand, and began to ponder on how to wake her up. All other choices aside, she stuck with blowing cool ice on her to jolt her awake. She stood back and took a deep breath, inhaling the strong scent of the trees and bushes. She felt the pull in her gut, and then released all the energy into a small but powerful blast of ice.

Sapientia was awake in an instant, drawing in breath for the obvious scream. All that came out was a shrill muffled sound; she opened her eyes to see the slim paw of Akitla over her maw. She swatted the light blue paw with her own pearl white one. "Akitla! What was that for?" Sapientia questioned as she rubbed bits of snow from her face.

"I need to talk to you." Akitla said like an anxious hatchling, awaiting a surprise.

"What about?" Sapientia asked, squinting her eyelids at the mischievous ice dragoness.

A smile crept onto Akitla's lips. "I know what's going on between you and Eldrid." She blurted out very plainly.

Sapientia's cheeks were an instant red, it was as if someone had clawed her across the face and blood was going everywhere.

She closed her eyes and looked away, holding her breath, waiting for her friends' next response. She was shocked when she heard the ice dragoness say. "I'm so proud of you!" The words rolled off her tongue in a happily manner, making Sapientia put her gaze back to her.

"What?" Sapientia asked, obviously shocked at her friend.

"You know what I mean. I saw you kiss him when we were above Warfang, and I assumed that's the reason why you were late to the departure, am I right?" Akitla stated to the, now read headed, dragon.

Sapientia nodded.

"Well then why are you hiding it? This morning you seemed perkier then you had ever been since your parents died. This could be the greatest thing that could have ever happened to you." Akitla explained to Sapientia whose eyes had gotten slightly moist at the mention of her parents.

"I guess I was too afraid about how you would react, I've never been in a relationship before." She stumbled, shifting her paws at the leaves that lined the forest floor.

"Well look at Spyro and Cynder, they're not afraid of how we'll react. They already trust us." Akitla responded as she motioned a paw back to their temporary campsite.

"My advice, do what you think is right. Whatever decision you make I won't stop you." Akitla said again, placing her firm paw on her own chest.

A smile fell onto her face like a brick would fall onto the floor; fast. "Thank you Akitla, I don't know where I'd be without you." Sapientia literally fell into a hug with Akitla, embracing the only dragon she ever truly knew.

The white and blue dragonesses both let go of each other as they looked back in the direction of the camp and trudged back to it in a silent agreement.

The campsite was nothing to look at, just four other dragons lying on the ground roughly trying to get some sleep. Sapientia looked at the sleeping form of Eldrid, contemplating whether or not to sleep beside him.

Meanwhile, Akitla was staring at the ruffled spot in the grass where Spyro had been before they left. Even though she thought about waking the others and looking for him, her better judgment took over and she decided that he could take care of himself; he being the purple dragon and all.

Akitla found the spot of the flattened leaves and grass that she had been lying on before she had awoken; the grass still slightly warm from her body heat. It wasn't long before she fell back into the endless void of sleep.

Sapientia had taken the choice of trusting the others and giving Eldrid a chance. She put her body next to his and pulled his large red wing over around her with a soft paw as if not to wake him. The only sound that escaped his muzzle was a soft groan.

_Earlier, before Akitla and Sapientia left_

Spyro's eyes shot open like a bullet, he had heard a rustle in the bushed to his right. It sounded as if it were a bigger animal, not your average deer or rabbit. He slowly stood and took his wing from Cynder's back.

He crouched, leaning towards his prey, not making a sound. All his training instincts took over as he loomed through the grass like a lion. Spyro spotted something in the underbrush; it seemed to not notice Spyro so he took this to his advantage.

Spyro leapt silently from the ground, tumbling over the animal and onto its stomach. Spyro had his claws to its neck and a growl from his throat in an instant, showing his teeth to the creature. Peering into its cool green irises. Spyro recognized them. He jumped off the creature and watched him as he stood up and brushed off his brown cloak and cape, taking special care not to damage the bowstring that was connected to a bow around his back.

Spyro was still cautious though, the creature did still have a hood over its head. "Hunter?" Spyro wondered aloud, trying to peek under the hood and get a glimpse at the figure.

"It's good to see you Spyro, where have you been? The whole cheetah village was worried sick, even Prowlus." Hunter chuckled at the last part.

"Hunter! It is you!" Spyro couldn't help but grin.

Spyro had only just then fully registered what the cheetah had said. "Even Prowlus was worried about us? Guess he did care." The purple dragon chimed in with the cheetah.

"Wait. Why were you watching us? Have you been following us?" Spyro repeatedly questioned the cheetah.

Hunter sighed. "Yes I have been following you, but for a reason. The guardians told me that you had gone out here to search the mountain of Malefor, and naturally, I couldn't resist. Plus I wanted to see if the rumors of your return were true." Hunter explained to the lilac dragon.

Spyro looked at the orange and black spotted cheetah with interest and thought, deciding that it was best not to ponder on the choice.

"Well we could use your help; do you want to come with us?" Spyro asked, raising an eyebrow.

"As long as you don't think that I will get in your way." Hunter answered, not in his usual tone of voice.

"Huh? What is that supposed to mean?" Spyro inquired.

"Well, it's just… You seem all grown up; you're not the dragons that I met a year ago. You've changed so much, not only in physical appearance but I'll be you're stronger too. A mere cheetah like me would just slow you down." Hunter explained unhappily, looking to the ground.

"Hunter. Look at me." Spyro said sternly.

Hunter drew his green eyes back up to meet Spyro's amethyst ones. They met in a deadly staring contest, Hunter, having sad depressed emotions, was being pierced by the deadly gaze of Spyro's, which were angled into a slight glare.

"I can't believe that you would actually say that. What happened to the old Hunter? They one that wasn't afraid to shoot a golem in the eye, the one that stood up to Chief Prowlus and got away with it. Hunter you are the strongest cheetah that I've ever met, sure me and Cynder may have changed a little but that doesn't mean that you haven't either." Spyro rambled, earning a smile from Hunter.

Spyro raised an eyebrow once again and smirked. "So are you coming with us or not?" The purple dragon said as he cocked his head towards the campsite.

"Sure." Hunter beamed.

Spyro motioned to where the others were sleeping and started toward that direction. Hunter meekly followed him, being as quiet as possible.

They emerged from the underbrush to see all the dragons and dragonfly where they had been before they left. "These are the guardian trainees. Akitla, Validus, Corron… Sapientia and Eldrid." Spyro whispered as he pointed to the respective dragons.

"This is new." Spyro mumbled to himself, clearly talking about Sapientia and Eldrid.

"What?" Hunter asked Spyro.

"Nothing." Spyro sighed as he shook his head to rid his mind of the two.

"We were going to investigate the mountain in a little while; we were resting at the base of it for a few hours. We should get going soon."Spyro planned out.

Hunter nodded. "Well then I think that they need to be awake to do any of that." He said sarcastically.

Spyro rolled his eyes. "But how are we going to wake them up?" Spyro looked at the cheetah as he made his way over to Validus.

Hunter began to shake him, holding onto the golden dragon's shoulders as he moved him back and forth on the ground. Nothing. Hunter then proceeded down to his hunting knife, which was in a hidden sling on his calf, lifted one of Validus' scales, and slipped the blade under the smooth surface. Hunter ripped the blade up with enough force to rip the scale from the skin.

Validus was already awake. From the moment that Hunter had started he had felt all the pain. He rose up in a scream of terror, making Spyro and Hunter collapse on the ground laughing. "Who are you?" Validus screeched to the hysterical cheetah.

Validus had to wait a minute before he got his answer, the laughter eventually subsiding. By this time all the others were awake and rubbing the sleep from their eyes. Cynder, who was trained to wake at the slightest of noise; was awake as soon as the blade left Validus' body, saw Hunter immediately, and rushed over to him gleefully, Just as Spyro said "Everyone, this is Hunter. He was the one who helped us defeat the dark master."

"Hunter! I can't believe it's really you!" Cynder exclaimed as she brought the cheetah into a hug with her dark red and black wings, giving them both a small reunion.

"Cynder, it's good to see you." Hunter said as he released her. That simple phrase filled Cynder with happiness, almost to the point of bursting. She had missed everyone else but Hunter was the only one who stayed with them, always helping her and Spyro.

The small reunion was short lived; as they had to go into the mountain before they wasted too much time, so they packed up all the essentials and began to scale to mountain.

The trek didn't take very long, but in the time it took to climb the dragon shaped mountain, Cynder walked up behind Sapientia and Eldrid. Thoughts about her previous battle with Sapientia had been going through her mind ever since it took place.

Cynder gently tapped Sapientia's shoulder with her tail blade, causing Sapientia to turn her head and meet Cynder's emerald eyes with her own. Cynder made a motion back with her paw, wanting to talk to her alone. Sapientia broke from her steady pace with Eldrid and joining Cynder at the back of the group of dragons, the cheetah and the dragonfly. "What is it Cynder?" Sapientia asked, trying not to stutter

"I want a rematch." Cynder said plainly, not even explaining the details.

"W-what?" Sapientia stuttered, shocked at her sudden statement

"You heard me, at the temple, when we get back. Being asleep for a year has made me a bit rusty in combat; I'd like to fight you again." Cynder challenged.

"Oh u-uh… I don't know, I-I guess I could." Sapientia stuttered again, rubbing the back of her head.

Cynder put on a cocky smile and continued to walk, swaying her hips without realizing. The two returned to the group, not saying anything else as they walked in silence through the greenery.

The nine made it to the entrance of the mountain, which was a crevice that connected to the crooked mouth of the dragon head, and were looking at the ominous looking entrance. "Let's do this." Spyro whispered to himself, but not going completely unnoticed.

They all began walking towards the darkness, slowly stepping into the unknown, grim looks on all of their faces.

They were all in darkness, the only light coming from the outside world and from the faint glow of a very worried Sparx, who hid behind one of Spyro's horns, making little quivering noises.

They were all looking through the dim, trying to find something through the rubble created by Spyro's dark side. But none was found.

Then, suddenly, as if there was an earthquake right there, the ground began to shake and rumble, the dragons and the cheetah began to try and dodge falling rocks and debris. They couldn't do anything to stop the boulders from blocking their only exit.

"No!" Spyro gasped as he jumped out of the path of a falling boulder and saving his own life.

A shriek was heard from the darkness, and a female voice said. "Akitla?... Akitla!" The voice growing with worry by every second.

The all of a sudden, the tremors stopped and everything went silent. Torches lit all around the room slowly, revealing a bruised and battered Akitla, her wing was twisted and warped, broken but not unfixable. Sapientia was at her side instantly. "Akitla! Are you okay?" Sapientia questioned.

Akitla opened one of her eyes and said "I'll be fine." Before coughing the dust out of her mouth.

"I wouldn't be so sure about that." A voice from above said.

The voice sounded strangely like Corron's, but at the same time not. "Corron? Is that you?" Spyro said loudly.

A small quivering answer came. "N-no… but I think I know who it is." Corron stuttered, much like Sapientia.

Lights suddenly erupted from large holes in the ceiling, blinding the dragons and the cheetah momentarily.

"Very good… have you figured it out yet?" They all looked up at a dragon that looked almost exactly like Corron, except for one difference. He had a bandage around his right paw.

"Remember me Spyro? Yes I've heard a lot about you." The dragon said again.

Spyro left the real world and retreated into his mind.

"He deserves to die for what he did!" Spyro saw himself with the same dragon, cowering in fear under him.

Spyro came back to reality, gasping as he looked back at the scowling dragon. "Yes as you may have guessed, that was me Spyro. And Corron, it's good to see you again." He said.

"Corron? Do you know him?" Spyro asked Corron, seeing the angry look on his face.

"What? You haven't told them yet?" he said.

"My name is Animus, I'm Corron's brother."

**AN: Cliffhangerrrrrrrr, hahaha! So who is this mysterious new dragon? And what is up with you guys? You didn't leave a single review while I was out (That's because we had that end of the year test and I don't have a computer) that really put a damper on my spirit. And if you're just skimming over this and not reading the part where I beg for reviews, please, please, please! Leave a review. I try to make each chapter longer than the last so they will be longer. And no that summer has started, I will either be slow, or fast updating . Until next time! Peace out mah homies.**


	7. Chapter 7: Calignosity

**The Legend of Spyro: Spirit of a Dragon**

**AN: Heyyyyyyyy! Once again, I have released the newest installment of my story! *Cheers to the world* WOOOOOOO! Once again I am sorry that I didn't update in a while on the last chapter, but I have many reasons I would rather not explain. WHAT THE HECK IS UP WITH YOU GUYS! I HAVE ONLY GOTTEN TWO REVIEWS FROM TWO PEOPLE ON MY LAST CHAPTER! Amorous-Thunder and TheGryphonKing, give yourselves a high five! I know I sound like a selfish little kid, but c'mon guys you can do better than that…. Again I am rambling, on with the story. BTW you've probably noticed the new book cover thingies, tell me what you think of mine! And since I don't get many reviews, I might start mentioning your names in my chapters (that is if you review).**

**Ch. 7: Calignosity**

"Corron…..Corron….! Snap out of it….! CORRON!" The words were like the wind, brushing past him without notice, not giving him any alert to him.

"CORRON!" At this point Spyro had grabbed Corron's shoulder blades and was shaking him wildly in an attempt to knock him from his shock induced trance.

The silent dragon shook his head back and forth a few times, coming back to reality and gaining a serious look on his face. "Corron, is what he said true?" Spyro asked the question everyone wanted to know, motioning to the green dragon above them.

"I'll explain later, right now we need to-." His words were cut off when he fell to the ground.

"Corron!" Spyro called, but no sooner did he collapse along with the unconscious dragon.

Everyone else released the breath that they were holding in a gasp of shock, meeting the same fate as the other two and falling to the ground, and rising dust. The torches around the room all extinguished, leaving seven sleeping dragons in complete and utter darkness.

Noelle was leisurely strolling through the dragon temple, not really paying attention to what she was doing or where she was going. She was looking at the mosaics and the stain glasses when she stumbled around a corner and into a baffled Volteer. "Oh… I'm sorry." Noelle apologized.

"Well that's quite alright, I'm sure that you didn't purposely bump into me." Volteer empathized.

Noelle however disregarded what he said, as she was lost in the depths of her mind. "Whatever could be perplexing you my young dragon?" Volteer asked the pure white dragon.

"A couple days ago there were two dragons in the infirmary, I think their names were Spyro and Cynder, I wanted to see how they were doing and if they had any problems but I can't find them." Noelle explained without hesitation.

"Allow me to explain, I am Volteer, Spyro, Cynder and a few other dragons were sent out to the mountain of Malefor to gather information or see if they can find anything suspicious. I'm not sure when they will return." Volteer rambled in his lightning fast tongue.

"Oh, I see. Well thanks anyway, by the way, I'm Noelle." Noelle stated before she walked beyond the large yellow dragon.

Volteer just watched her as she walked away, head slightly drooped and tail occasionally twitching, before turning his head back in the direction of the guardian's chamber and slowly stepped on.

Terrador was hunched over in front of the pool of visions, watching the fluorescent liquid swirl around in intricate patterns and trying to find the slightest trace of Spyro. He was concentrating on trying to contact Spyro or even Cynder for that matter, but whenever he got close his concentration was interrupted by some force.

Volteer stood in front of the door of the guardian's chamber and slowly he opened the door, trying not to make a sound but failing when the door made an extremely loud squeak. "It's alright Volteer, I wasn't getting anywhere anyway." Terrador bluntly said as he turned his head.

"Still haven't found anything out yet huh? I assumed as much, as we weren't getting anywhere earlier." Volteer said unusually in a slow voice without using any confusing words or phrases.

"Yes Volteer, I'm afraid it's true, we need to set out a search party for them, they should've been back by now." Terrador stated.

"Are you sure Terrador?" Volteer asked again in his slow voice.

"Yes Volteer, it's been three days, that should've been plenty of time to find something and if we don't act now then it will be too late. Well send two guardians and some of the temple guard captains, we need to leave by today and get there by nightfall, and we need enough armor to protect us from minor attacks but it has to be light enough for us to move fast." Terrador explained as he rushed out the door and towards the training centers.

Volteer was basically on Terrador's feet as he trotted down the hallway, bursting through the door of the dojo and causing the guards and captains to look at him in interest. "Where are your strongest captains and guards?" Terrador stated without hesitation.

A few of the guards stepped forward and only two of the captains, but they looked as if they could handle going to the mountain. "Follow us." Terrador once again plainly said, which kind of irritated Volteer, he hated when he got in these moods.

They were all walking towards the armory when one of the captains asked. "What is it, master Terrador?"

"You all know Spyro and Cynder right?" Volteer said, beating Terrador to it.

A few of them nodded. "Well they went on an expedition to the mountain of Malefor three days ago, and they haven't returned yet." Volteer finished.

At this point they had all arrived at the armory and were rushing into the small room. "Find yourselves some light armor, and be hasty, we need to leave soon." Terrador said as he slipped his head into a bright sliver helmet.

Volteer, being a master in electricity, naturally moved fast, so he had his armor on first. "Volteer, go inform Cyril that he will be staying here until we return and that he needs to act as a leader for Warfang. We meet in the courtyard in five minutes." Terrador ordered.

"Yes sir!" Volteer snapped immediately, and ran out the door.

The other guards and captains had donned themselves in armor and were standing in a line before Terrador. "Let's move!" Terrador ordered again.

"Yes sir!" they all shouted together, as they followed Terrador out of the armory and towards the large double doors of the entrance to the temple.

Noelle was sitting under an oak tree in the main courtyard, looking up through the leaves and to the sky beyond. '_Oh Spyro, where are the two of you?'_ she thought to herself.

Noelle's thoughts were interrupted by the sound of clicking claws, and by the rhythm they were running. She looked ahead to the courtyard to see a bright yellow and purple dragon, wearing bright silver armor, stop his sprint in the middle of the courtyard. "Volteer? What are you doing here? And what's the armor about?" Noelle bombarded him with questions.

"We…are going… to the mountain….. Of Malefor…. To search… for Spyro." Volteer panted, greedily taking in gulps of air in-between each couple of words.

"You're going!" An idea sprang into Noelle's head like a crazed rabbit.

"It must be dangerous, it'd be a shame if someone were to…. Be injured." Noelle taunted.

"What are you trying to say to me? Are you implying that someone will die on this expedition?" Volteer asked in his regular tone, squinting his eyes.

"No I'm implying, that someone might be hurt, you'll need a healer dragon with you won't you?"Noelle smiled.

"Noelle, you may not come with us, it is far too dangerous" Volteer stated.

"Exactly! You're proving my point. I'm a healer dragon and if someone gets hurt I can nurse them back to health." Noelle began to become excited.

By this point, Terrador and the others had made their way outside and were rushing towards Volteer and Noelle. "Who is this?" Terrador asked Volteer.

"This is Noelle, she's a healer dragoness and she is asking to come with us." Volteer replied, looking to Terrador.

"Great, we'll need a healer, glad you're on board." Terrador quickly said, cutting off Volteer's argument.

"But-." Volteer was about to interject, but decided to leave it for later.

"Let's go. We need to get there early." Was all Terrador said before he bent his legs and launched into the air with a powerful kick, leaving an updraft for the others to follow.

Everyone else, including the slim white dragoness, flapped their wings and followed Terrador. They were all flying at high speeds, Volteer and Terrador in the front, Noelle following behind them, and the guards and captains in the back, which made eight dragons in all.

"Terrador. Who are these dragons anyway?" Volteer shouted over the roaring wind, turning his golden head to meet the gaze of Terrador.

Terrador looked behind him, pointing to a light blue dragon with small white flakes all over his body and blocky, ice like horns, with a long diamond shaped tail blade to complete it. "That one is Kyslik; he's one of the captains of the Presidium Guard." Terrador explained,

He then motioned to a well built earth dragon who looked a lot like him, the only exception being an elongated saber as a tail blade. "That is Durus, the other captain." Terrador bluntly said.

He then pointed to the three other dragons. "And they are Exuro, Tristita, and Niveus." He said as he pointed to a dark red dragon with bright golden horns and an orange spear shaped tail blade and dark green eyes, then a sand yellow dragon with a black underbelly and horns and strong gray irises and a cluster of black bristles for a tail blade, and then finally a deep smoke colored dragon with completely black eyes and a large line across his right eye, indicating some kind of accident, with a tail blade which looked remarkably like Spyro's.

"I hope they can handle this, ancestors… grant us safety" Volteer whispered to himself as dark clouds were assembling a long way ahead of them.

Musk…. The only thing that he could smell. Darkness…. The only thing he could see. Silence… the only sound.

Corron shifted against the cold hard surface, pushing away from the stone wall he was leaning on, groaning as he did so. He had been awake for about half an hour, contemplating on what had just happened. His brother, who had said to have been killed by Malefor's forces, had come out of hiding and kidnapped them, he seemed to have drugged them while they were unconscious, giving that he couldn't use any of his earth abilities.

His thoughts were interrupted by a deep groan nearby. "Hello? Who's there?" Corron asked out loud.

"Ughh… depends on who's asking." The peppy voice of Spyro answered.

Corron sighed, letting a small chuckle slip out of his lips and giving him a moment of that safe feeling, but falling back into reality. "Where are we?" Spyro asked, turning his head in different directions in an attempt to see anything.

"I don't know for sure, but I have a pretty good idea of who put us here." Corron sighed.

Spyro sat up and stretched, feeling a small movement on the top of his skull and freezing in his tracks before realizing what, or who, it was. Spyro rolled his eyes and shifted his head forward slightly, making a small object fall to the floor.

A grunt and a moan was heard as a slight yellow glow illuminated the silhouettes of six other creatures and the moss covered brick walls of a prison cell. "Where's Cynder, and the others?" Spyro remembered, leaning closer into Corron's field of vision.

Corron nodded his head to Spyro's back, making him turn around. "Sparx, come here." Spyro said, not moving his head, but motioning with a paw.

"I'm not just a torch y'know." Sparx complained.

Spyro turned his head, looking annoyed, to Sparx who had his arms crossed, floating nonchalantly in the dry air. Spyro sighed. "Sparx." Spyro moaned.

Sparx just closed his eyes and turned his head to the side. Spyro turned back around and wrapped his amethyst tail around Sparx's waist, pulling him to the front of his face and grabbing him with a paw, lifting him up into the air and lighting the moss covered walls of a prison cell. "Great." Spyro sarcastically said.

He and Corron walked forward a few steps before seeing the dark figures of Cynder, the other guardian trainees and Hunter. "Cynder? Cynder…!" Spyro worriedly pestered.

He ran to her feeble figure, shaking her body vigorously. "Cynder, wake up!" Spyro whispered as loud as he dared.

Cynder groaned, wincing in pain and soreness. "Sp- Spyro?" She quivered, opening her eyes and squinting in an attempt to see him better.

"Yes Cynder, I'm here." Spyro assured as he lifted her head up and began to stroke her cheek.

"I'm here too." Corron laughed.

"Yeah, forget the dragonfly too." Sparx crossed his arms and leaned in.

Spyro chuckled along with Corron. "Yes, Corron and Sparx are here too." He said, turning his head.

Cynder smiled and sat up, giving another wince as she rubbed the back of her neck. She stood up and unfurled her stiff wings and legs, relieving several popping noises, before she said. "Sparx, Corron, are you two okay?" Cynder asked sweetly.

Corron lifted a paw turning it from side to side. "More or less." He smiled.

"Yeah, now that you're awake I feel safe." Sparx snorted sarcastically.

"Sparx!" Spyro and Cynder said simultaneously, exposing their razor sharp teeth and claws.

"Okay, okay! Sorry." Sparx quickly apologized, feeling threatened and putting his hands up in defense.

Spyro, Cynder Sparx and Corron then proceeded to wake the others up, shaking them and ending up with a circle of dragons, a dragonfly and a cheetah. "What are we going to do now? And where are we?" Validus asked no one in particular.

"I don't know what we're going to do…. but I think I know who put us here." Corron said as he turned his head to what looked like Validus' head.

"Hold on I can't see a thing, Sparx c'mere for a sec." Eldrid said from the left side of Hunter.

Sparx obliged and floated towards Eldrid's figure. Eldrid then began to feel around on the walls as the others just looked in that general direction. After about five or ten minutes Eldrid felt a hilt on the wall and lifted a cylindrical object off of a stand.

"Guys, I found a torch." Eldrid said as he brought it into Sparx's dim glow.

"Good, but how are we going to light it?" Akitla questioned.

Eldrid dropped the unlit torch by his side and brought his flame shaped tail blade up to the timber that was tied to the end. He scrapped his tail against the cold floor, making sparks ignite the timber and a warm flame envelope the room in an orange light, making Sparx's light look pitiful.

"Eldrid, how did you do that? Tail blades are made of bone." Validus said, amused.

"Fire dragon's tail blades are made of flint, here look closer." Eldrid swung his tail in front of his face, the others gathering around and noticing the small stone like appearance of the tail blade.

"Learn something new every day." Validus said, shaking his head.

They then began conversing on what they could do to escape; they needed to report this to the guardians. But they couldn't find anything that would work or even seemed like a good plan, but they were interrupted by a loud creak and a slam.

They were met by a pale white dragon, he looked like he hadn't eaten in days and his bones could be easily seen through his skin. "M-master a-a-Animus wishes to s-see you all." He weakly said.

The bars of the prison cell creaked open and they all stepped out slowly, seeing that in the high walls above, hundreds of grublins clad in armor and weapons were watching them from the walls and even on the ceiling. Spyro's eyes widened at this, but he just looked back at the pale dragon who was walking with a slight limp.

Upon closer inspection, Spyro noticed that the dragon had scars almost all across his entire body, some old some new, some still leaking small trickles of blood. "Where did you get those?" Spyro dared to ask.

"Hmm? O-oh the s-scars? I-if I disappoint m-my master o-or f-fail to complete h-his demands, i-I am punished." He quivered, which made it hard to understand.

They all looked to the long stretches of scars which most were long but not deep, it looked as if he had been whipped, and many times at that. They all just looked away from him, Akitla, Validus and Sapientia looking at the creatures in the cells, some dragons, some moles, and even cheetahs, male and female alike.

Corron and Eldrid looked at the intimidating grublins that loomed above, watching some strain as they held back from swooping down and attempted to rip them to shreds. But Spyro and Cynder just looked at the shaking dragon in front of them, leading them to who knows where.

"Corron, is that guy really-." Spyro started.

"Do not speak anymore." The dragon said, closing his eyes in annoyance.

They were all led to a group of steel double doors, which creaked open slowly, showing the same green dragon with the all familiar bandage on his right paw sitting on a stone throne. "Look who it is, what a surprise." Animus grinned, earning a scowl from all except Hunter who had a hand to the bridge of his eyes massaging the spot.

"I'm terribly sorry about my guards, they can be a bit… over dramatic at times. Leave us!" Animus smiled, dismissing the grublins.

Animus stood up walking towards Spyro. "Hello again, Spyro is it? Yes I remember you, but the question is do you remember me? Perhaps I could help you jog your memory." That was the last thing he said before he dropped in a spin, knocking Spyro off his feet with his tail at lightning speed.

The others tried to step forward but were stopped by something, a dark purple smoke enveloped around all of them, restricting their movement. "Now now, we wouldn't want someone to get hurt now would we." Animus laughed manically, returning his gaze to the straining Spyro.

'_What is this? I can't move_!' Was what was going through Spyro's head at that same moment.

Animus strode over to Spyro's face, lifting it off the ground with his left paw and bringing his bandaged right paw up to his eyes. "You see this Spyro? My paw is broken, now I wonder how this happened…. Oh yeah, you broke it. But I'm willing to forgive….. But not this time." Animus said, his voice filled with sarcasm.

Animus walked around Spyro, just looking at him. "Hmm… how about this." Was all he said before he rose up on two legs, bringing down with incredible force and smashing Spyro's major leg joints on his back left leg.

A scream of sheer pain ripped itself from Spyro's maw; nothing was stopping Animus from breaking his leg. The scream lasted for many seconds, quieting to only Animus. "I break your leg and we see where it goes from there." An evil chuckle was echoed through the room, leaving a wincing Spyro behind.

"Don't hurt him!" Cynder screamed, eyes closed and tears flowing.

Animus' eyes widened. "Oh yes, and I can't forget the lovely dragoness." He walked over to her still form.

"Yes I know you, Cynder, the terror of the skies, the Queen of darkness, not very terrifying if you ask me. But why did you seem so upset about me hurting Spyro, it can't be that he's your mate is he?" Animus smiled again, wider than before.

They both just continued sobbing, Spyro in pain, Cynder in sadness. "I see it must be true, then that makes you special." He walked back over to Spyro and lifted his chin, putting his mouth up to his ear.

"I'm going to take away everything you hold dear." He whispered, resuming his walk walking back to Cynder as he continued to chuckle.

"Don't…you…dare…touch…her." Spyro grumbled, pushing past the tears and pain.

"Mmmm… I'm impressed, genuinely impressed, usually nobody can talk when I cast that spell on people, maybe I'm getting a bit rusty, never mind, more important things to do." Animus resumed walking, that creepy smile still on his face.

He reached Cynder, bringing his good paw up to her, dragging his claws across her face. "So tell me, how will you _ever_ get out of this one?" he pulled his paw away from her face.

He chuckled. "What's wrong? You seemed so confident not two seconds ago." The smile immediately was wiped from his face as he drew back his paw and swung it across her face, making a painful *CRACK!* echo throughout the room.

Cynder squeaked as four gashes were left on her face. "Now this looks familiar… where have I seen these before…..? Oh yes, right here." He traced the scars on her chest from when he attacked her in Warfang.

"Do…Not…Touch… HER…!" Spyro screamed, straining even more, trying to lift his head.

"Awww, look at you." He laughed again.

"You know it's funny, not three days ago you were standing over me about to kill me and I'm about to do just that, just give me a sec so I can finish off you little friends, don't worry, I'm a nice guy so I'll do it quick." He almost couldn't stop laughing as he turned back to Cynder and lifted his paw to strike her heart.

"I WILL KILL YOOOOOUUU!" Spyro wailed, rising up off of the ground, scales fading into the complete black of his dark side.

Animus whirled around lowering into a battle stance, quivering slightly at the all too familiar jet black dragon with the intimidating, supernatural voice. Spyro tackled Animus, pinning him to the ground, using his tail to hold down Animus'.

Animus tensed up and moved his good wrist to the side, causing a rumble and a smile to appear on his face. Spyro didn't notice but a boulder the size of the prison cell they were in was falling from the ceiling at high speeds.

A large earsplitting crack rang through the room, making Animus chuckle, but to his surprise Spyro was still standing over him, eyes closed. The gargantuan boulder just crumbled and cracked slightly, still balanced perfectly on his back, rolling off with ease and crashing into a nearby wall, breaking off piece by piece.

"You know it's funny, not three days ago I was standing over you about to kill you and I'm about to do just that, just give me a sec so I can finish you off, don't worry, I'm a nice guy so I'll do it quick."Spyro chuckled in his demonic otherworldly voice.

Animus was shaking, making small huffing noises, quivering at just the sight of the bloodstained teeth, the look of pure terror. Animus came back to his senses and scowled at the dragon, dissipating in a cloud of black smoke and reappearing just feet above him, flapping his wings to stay afloat.

Animus tensed up again, the dark purple smoke appearing around Spyro again and seeming to immobilize him. Spyro just looked up at the flying earth dragon, giving his wings a mighty flap and jumping into the air, moving despite the purple smoke still pulsing around him. Spyro just had an evil crooked smile plastered on his face, bloodstained teeth showing like mad, and it wasn't long before Animus lost his confidence again, fading into a black smoke again.

"Where are you going Animus? What happened to all that confidence?" Spyro yelled out to the room.

Animus was crouching behind a piece of the shrapnel of the fallen boulder, eyes closed, muttering uncontrollably. "Hmm… where could you be?" Spyro yelled again, smashing one of the boulders not too far from Animus.

Animus took quick deep breaths, opening his eyes and digging his claws into the ground. He turned slightly, jumping out with a powerful stomp. Razor sharp stalagmites shot into where Spyro was seconds before. Animus only had enough time to widen his eyes before he was risen up off of the ground by his neck, coughing and gagging at the lack of oxygen, kicking his legs at whatever was restraining him.

He disappeared again, appearing in the center of the room. "Two can play that game." With that Spyro disappeared in the black smoke, and appeared behind Animus.

Spyro grabbed Animus' leg with his teeth and swung him in a whole 360 degree circle before releasing his grip and letting Animus fly into a wall, leaving a deep indent with many cracks and holes.

Spyro opened his maw, taking in a huge breath before rising up on his back paws and roaring, letting his anger flow freely. A dome of wind began to pulse around Spyro, bringing up dust and small bits of rubble, red waves of fear were pouring out of his body, effecting not only Animus but the still paralyzed guardian trainees, Hunter and Sparx.

Spyro rose into the air once again, claws coated in poison and black smoke leaking from his jaws, hell-bent on destroying them all.

"Terrador… what could all that be?" Volteer pointed to a cloud of enveloping black smoke.

"I do not know my friend, do you think that it could be Spyro?" Terrador asked with squinted eyes.

"Well whatever it is, we must get there quickly, someone could be in trouble." Volteer said, looking back at the mountain.

Terrador, Volteer, Noelle, and the guards all gained speed, reaching the mountain in time to watch Spyro explode out of the side, wind swirling around him, claws covered in greed venomous liquid.

_A few minutes earlier._

Spyro was just looking at Animus' crumpled body, still unconscious from the previous blow. All of a sudden, Animus just disappeared in the black smoke again, and the others fell over, the dark purple smoke had dissipated.

Spyro let another roar escape, and he began to fly at the rock wall, the wind ripping off rocks and boulders, burrowing through the mountain. Spyro broke through the wall and shot out into the open air, running into a surprised group of dragons.

"Out of my way whelps!" Spyro screamed.

"Spyro…? Is that you? What happened to you my boy?" Volteer breathed.

"Why if it isn't my old friend… what do you mean what happened? Nothing happened; I'm completely fine, better in fact." Spyro laughed without blinking, creepily tormenting them all.

"Volteer, is that really Spyro?" Terrador breathed

"Yes… I believe that when Spyro was battling the ape king Gaul, he was exposed to an unearthly amount of convexity, giving his darker side an actual being." Volteer rambled.

"I will say it again, get out of my way!" Spyro yelled.

"Volteer we need to do something, we can't let Spyro do anything he'll regret." Terrador said, looking back at Volteer.

"I know…. I have an idea, get him fired up, but be careful, get him to use all of his energy." Volteer said, looking at Spyro's gruesome form.

"What!" Terrador exclaimed.

"Listen to him; he knows what he's doing." The golden dragon Tristita flew up and said.

Terrador nodded and turned back to Spyro. "What will you do if we don't?" Terrador shouted.

"Oh I don't know, what do you think?" Spyro sarcastically said.

"Why don't you show me then?" Terrador said.

"Oh I intend to, I won't even need to try." Spyro snorted.

"Oh I think you're bluffing." Terrador smiled.

Spyro laughed. "Oh I'll show you." Spyro said before he began to charge up a large beam of convexity.

Terrador stood at the ready, eyes squinted. Spyro released the energy, billowing it all straight at Terrador. Thinking fast, he pulled up giant sheets of earth which began to hold the beam of convexity back. "Volteer…! I can't… hold this…. Much longer!" Terrador wailed, straining all of his muscles.

It wasn't long before the rocks began to split and crack, revealing bursts of purple lights. "VOLTEER!" Terrador growled.

Terrador's efforts eventually failed and the beam of convexity blasted through the wall, flying straight at Terrador. He knew about convexity and how unbearably painful it can be, seeing the oncoming threat, he closed his eyes and turned to the side…. However the pain didn't come, just a gust of wind, he opened his eyes to see Exuro flying in front of him, a steady stream of flames erupting from his jaws. "Exuro!" Terrador exclaimed.

"Do not worry my friend, I have this under control." He wisely said through the fire, but despite his efforts the blinding ray was still pushing the flames back.

Suddenly a light blue steady bolt of lightning was shot into the fray. Terrador and the other guards looked to Volteer who had an electrical field dancing around on his scales which met in a concentrated beam of nearly white hot lightning. "Brilliant Volteer!" Terrador cried before opening his maw and releasing small razor sharp stalagmites at high, blinding speeds.

They all began to fire their elements into the convexity beam, stopping it in its tracks, feet before Exuro's face. "I WILL NOT BE BEATEN BY A GROUP OF SOME ORDINARY DRAGONS! I REFUSE IT!" Spyro wailed, convexity pulsing throughout his whole body and the area around him.

But as soon as it started, it stopped. Spyro just collapsed, falling to the ground as his scales turned back to their regular color. He hit the ground with a sickly crash. "Terrador, I'll get Spyro… you and the guards get the others." Volteer gasped.

"Sounds good, we'll head home now." Terrador sighed, breathless at Spyro's sheer, inner strength.

Volteer just swooped down and lifted the unconscious Spyro onto his back, surprised at the size of the dragon, he had grown quite a bit, he was almost Volteer's same size, never mind that though, he had more important things to do.

Volteer turned to see Terrador and the guards with the trainees on their backs. Terrador had Cynder and Akitla, Akitla was the only one who wasn't dangling from two wing joints, and instead she was hanging limp from Terrador's grasp. Exuro had Eldrid on his back, Tristita had Sapientia, Niveus was with Validus, Corron was on top of Durus, and Kyslik had the furry long arms of Hunter over his shoulders.

They all took flight, slowly making their way back to Warfang, letting the breeze flow across their scales. Upon the base of Spyro's tail however, was a patch of onyx black scales…

**AN: Aaaaaaaaand that concludes the chapter! Again I am soo sorry for not updating very soon, I've been having problems with my computer, and yes I did get one :3. Sorry for the short authors note but I updated this at like 2:30 am which for some of you in other places isn't very late but for me it's like the sun coming up in 3 hours. If you haven't left any reviews then please do, I might mention your names in the chapters since I don't get many, thanks again to Amorous-Thunder and TheGryphonKing** **for reviewing on my last chapter, you two rule! Buh-bye!**


	8. Chapter 8: Surprises

**The Legend of Spyro: Spirit of a Dragon**

**AN: Heyyyyyy everybody, did you miss me? I; as you can see have come off of my break from fanfiction. But, I have returned! *Makes evil face and rubs hands together* but aside from that, I would like to thank a guest who left a super long review on the last chapter and also The-Legend-Spyro, Belitinog, TheGryphonKing, and VallitanTheDragon. You all helped me a lot :D. And also I have some interesting facts for you, apparently the year 2012 is the Chinese "Year of the Dragon" which is the year that all the dragons are born in, and the "Year of the Dragon" happens every 12 years. The Actual day of the "Year of the Dragon" is on February 4****th****. Gotta wait till 2024 Feb. 4****th**** for the next one :D. HERE IS THE CHAPTER!**

**Ch. 8: Surprises **

"Get them to the-…. He's going to-…..Hurry!" Spyro dazedly heard, the words echoing as if they were uttered in a tunnel or if they were said underwater.

Spyro only had the chance to squint his eyes, not even making out any shapes or anything familiar, before he lost consciousness. Becoming limp: as if he was dead.

Ignitus was lounging lazily in the chamber of the chronicler, leaning against the large cyan blue hourglass, a forest green book levitating book in front of him. Ignitus let the book close and wander as the blue hourglass began to glow and blue lights manifested into the form of Spyro, grunting to get the young dragons attention.

"Ahh… If it isn't Spyro… come, sit down with me." Ignitus motioned to the purple dragon, patting the ground next to him.

"Ignitus, what happened?" Spyro questioned to the chronicler, examining his body for any injuries.

"That's not important now, what is, is that you are safe and you survived. Look at this book Spyro." Ignitus pulled a green book with gold writing and edges on it, out of the air.

"This is Animus' book; it has all of his recorded memories and everything that has ever happened to him within it." Ignitus said, examining the book with ease.

Spyro noticed that in gold writing it said: '_Animus'_. Ignitus sighed. "This boy had a lot of potential, but that all went away when he followed the path of darkness." Ignitus reminisced, heaving a sigh.

"Why did he turn anyway? All _I_ did was break his paw." Spyro asked, putting his own paw on his chest scales.

"That's what I wanted to talk to you about. You see his life hasn't always been easy, his parents always favored Corron; him being in the running to become a guardian. Animus wanted the same attention as his brother so he started to train as hard as his brother, and Animus nearly had the spot you see. But the Guardians decided that they were so evenly matched that they were to fight one another, and Corron came out victorious.

Corron went to live in the dragon temple and Animus stayed in the downbeat outer rank of Warfang, barely making do with the small cottage he had and his only money came from doing odd jobs around the city. Their parents had been murdered shortly before, so they didn't want to grow up and not make a difference." Spyro listened intently to the story, quietly waiting for the conclusion.

"When their parents died they wanted to make them proud and when Corron earned the spot Animus was furious, he let his anger get the best of him building by the day and days later you arrived at Warfang, and that fight pushed him over his limit. Animus fled the city leaving no trace and finding the army of Grublins. Animus then got the idea to lead them, making worse decisions every minute and letting his heart fill with darkness." Ignitus closed his eyes and rubbed his temples, letting the book slowly float back to its spot in the bookshelf.

"Wow… Animus has a messed up life. I wish there were something I could do." Spyro pondered.

"There probably is, Cynder was corrupted by darkness and you saved her from it, this isn't very different from that." Ignitus said, looking to the ceiling.

"But it might be harder, Animus _chose _the path of darkness, Cynder was _forced_. Cynder had always been fighting the darkness from completely enveloping her but Animus let it all in at once." Ignitus explained again, letting out a huff from the long story and closing his eyes to rest.

"So… what do you mean harder?" Spyro said quizzically.

"Well… With the whole being asleep for a year thing weighing you down, I still don't know how that's possible, you'll need some training before you confront him again. You _and_ Cynder, Even the trainees." Ignitus told Spyro in an 'a matter of fact' tone.

"Spyro… In you training I suggest that you try to get a hold of you darker side, it seems to be consuming you. I mean, look at your tail!" Ignitus ordered, raising his front paws and pointing to his tail.

Spyro spun around and looked at the patch of black scales right beneath his tail blade. "Ignitus? What's happening to me?" Spyro gaped, widening his eyes.

"You're fighting a battle with your dark side and you're beginning to loose, that's what I meant when I said you need to get it under control. If you don't soon then you won't be able to control it any longer and you'll lose yourself." Ignitus sighed.

"Your dark side will take over your real form, changing your physical structure and your mental structure as well, until your current form is completely gone and the real you will cease to exist …" Ignitus was now staring at Spyro in awe.

"Ignitus, were do you learn all of this?" Spyro wondered.

"I am the chronicler, I know almost everything." Ignitus boasted.

"You didn't know that Animus was going to attack us." Spyro sarcastically retorted.

Ignitus blushed and rubbed the back of his head with a paw. "Well….. I said almost alright!" Ignitus whined.

Spyro laughed at the blunt of his former mentor, letting Ignitus join in, smiling at the nostalgia of laughter the moment had brought and remembering the other laughs they had shared.

Dust rose as a much younger Spyro crashed into the ground, adding another bruise to the collection he already had. "This is useless; I'll never get this right." Spyro pouted.

Ignitus glided down from the balcony of the mossy dragon temple, which had acted as a home for the both of them. "Are you alright Spyro?" Ignitus asked the stumbling purple dragon.

"How do you fly so well Ignitus?" Spyro asked in the high, squeaky voice of a hatchling.

"It is not something that you are born with young dragon, just trust your instincts and let the ancestors guide you. Don't think about it too much." The maroon dragon coaxed.

"Well…..Okay!" Spyro excitedly said, running into the entrance of the temple and appearing at the balcony high above.

"I'll try again!" Spyro shouted with a huge smile over his face.

Spyro back up a few steps and bounded toward the terrace, leaping off of the railing and opening his small wingspan. "Relax Spyro! Just let go!" Ignitus shouted with his paws cupped around his maw.

The words flew around inside of Spyro's head, repeating themselves over and over. Spyro closed his eyelids and let his legs go limp, not clenched to his body like they usually were when he tried to fly.

Spyro felt the wind in his face, the smells of the mushroom forest hit him as he opened his eyes, Spyro looked down to see that he was slowly soaring above the watchful eyes of Ignitus, the trees and swamps looking smaller than ever.

Spyro let a hearty, squeaky laugh explode out of him, and he angled his wings to glide down, which took him a couple of tries. Spyro began to increase speed, pulling up feet from the ground and landing face first into a pile of dirt and frogweed.

Spyro lifted his head and shook a dangling piece of frogweed from his nose, putting on the most adorable mad face anyone could ever have. Ignitus couldn't help but slip up as he saw the look on Spyro's face, laughing hard enough to make Spyro laugh in unison. "Don't worry Spyro, I had trouble when I was young, you'll get the hang of it." Ignitus assured.

"Well Spyro… you'd better be getting back, you're due for a slight surprise." Ignitus chuckled, shaking Spyro from his memories.

"What? Ignitus, what do you mean?" Spyro questioned, shaking his head.

Ignitus chuckled as Spyro felt the world slip from his mental grasp once again, feeling numb to the bone….

The pungent fumes of the infirmary stung at Spyro's nose like an angry yellow jacket, waking him from his slumber. He opened his crusty eyes and brought a sore paw to his face, yawning and rubbing his eyes as he tried to sit up, stopping when he noticed the bruises around his body and the brace on his left back leg.

The memories flooded back to him all at once, shocking him into a sort of paralysis; in which he couldn't move. Only the touch of a familiar white dragoness awoke him. "Noelle!" Spyro exclaimed, perking up.

"Yes, yes, it's good to see you too." Noelle chuckled, looking him dead in the eye.

"Here, take this." She smiled, taking out a bright green spirit gem and breaking it over his body, letting floating particles phase into his body and rejuvenating his strength.

"Um… Thanks, but why did I need that?" Spyro asked.

"During that fight a few days ago-." She started.

"Wait! A few days? How many?" Spyro interrupted.

"About four… During the fight you over used your energy, almost using all of it at that. You slipped into some kind of coma, lucky it only lasted a few days." She quickly explained, putting on a weird face.

"Well where is everybody?" Spyro repeatedly questioned.

"Somewhere in the temple I guess, they do live here." Noelle snorted.

"Well then let's go find them!" Spyro chimed, rising up and hopping off of the bed, stretching the two pieces of leather that bind his leg together.

"Let's go!" Spyro shouted, already through the doorway, his joints still popping from disuse.

"Spyro, wait!" Noelle shouted, but it was futile; as he was out of earshot.

Noelle grunted and slugged out into the hallway, seeing the jogging Spyro slightly limp into the turn. After many twists and turns she sighted the purple dragon, muttering under her breath as she moved out into the open air of the main courtyard.

Noelle stopped as she saw Spyro peering over a shrub at something. "What are you looking at?" Noelle questioned over his shoulder, noticing his short uneasy breaths.

"Slow down next time." She ordered, turning her head in his direction.

She looked in the direction he was and saw what he was looking at. Cynder was hacking away at a moving wooden dummy, which was made of a dark mahogany in the shape of an ape with a club. Cynder rose up into the sky and dove down, claws at the ready. The Ape dummy, however, slowly swung his club and knocked her off course, making her pull up at the last second and crash into the pavement.

"Ooo… that must've hurt" Noelle sympathized.

Spyro limped behind Noelle and made his way towards Cynder, nudging her with his forehead. "Are you okay?" He asked with care.

Cynder bolted up at hearing his voice, widening her eyes as if she saw a ghost. She wasted no time in planting her lips on his, placing her paws around his neck and pulling him as close as he would allow. Noelle chuckled from afar, turning and walking back to the infirmary.

Spyro and Cynder parted and looked each other in the eyes. "You looked a little rusty back there, is everything okay?" Spyro nearly whispered, motioning with his head to the deactivated ape doll.

"Yeah, but since we've been asleep for a year I guess I've lost some of my touch, and you're not doing so well in the arena yourself." Cynder chuckled, pocking him in the chest.

Spyro smiled and put his forehead to hers, closing his eyes. "I missed you." Cynder lovingly told him.

"I missed you too." Spyro smiled.

"How's your leg?" Cynder asked, looking back over his shoulder at the brown laced pieces of leather.

"Better, I don't think it's broken, which surprises me. Noelle must have done something." Spyro said, looking back at his leg, then back at Cynder.

"Well that's good to hear, just wait for it to finish healing and then you need to start training, I'm sure you need to." Cynder whispered, smiling at the last bit.

"Where are the others? I'd expect them to be training with you." Spyro noticed.

"I don't know, I haven't seen them since yesterday. But they were in the Infirmary when we got back." Cynder responded.

"Well then let's not bother them. C'mon, why don't we go and see the guardians." Spyro suggested, batting his head to the side.

The two then began to walk back into the temple, Spyro's wing draped over Cynder's back. They walked through the halls and stopped at the door to the guardian's chamber, opening the door to see all three of the guardians looking into the pool of visions.

Volteer, who was on the opposite side of Cyril and Terrador, was facing Spyro's direction and looked up to see them slugging forward. "Ahh, if it isn't the young dragons, I can assume that you are doing well; seeing that you are up and about." Volteer noticed.

"Yes Volteer, I'm doing a lot better." Spyro chuckled, stopping at the liquid filled pool.

Cyril and Terrador turned and smiled at them. "Come Spyro. I want you to look at this." Terrador said, motioning to the pool of visions. Spyro and Cynder stepped up to the glowing blue circle, looking interestedly into the liquid. It wasn't long before the pool moved and an image appeared.

Animus stalked through a dark hallway with the pale white dragon on his heels. "Assemble the Grublins and the Dreadwings, make sure that they're in top condition and that they will not fail, if you mess this up there will be severe consequences! Dot _NOT_ fail me!" Animus ordered, turning around to the bright white dragon, making him cower on the ground, eyes closed and trembling.

"Am… I… Clear?" Animus scorned, squinting his eyes.

"Y-yes s-s-sir." The dragon quivered, looking away from the demeaning dragons stare.

"Good!" He ordered.

The image faltered and disappeared, leaving a shocked Spyro. "When did this happen?" He gaped.

"A day after you came back, we fear that this means there will be an invasion, but we don't know how big or when. We've been upping our defenses but we didn't want to make any big decisions without you or Cynder." Cyril explained.

"Us?" Spyro asked.

"Yes Spyro, you are the purple dragon after all, and you are getting older. And you know how the last purple dragon turned out." Volteer said with a frown.

Spyro's head drooped in thought. "We can't afford to lose as many lives as we did last time, I would prefer that none of us died but blood will be shed…. Have anyone who can't fight evacuate the city, have them go to the cheetahs in Avalar, then make sure that they go somewhere safe." Spyro looked up.

"Everyone who can fight and choose to will stay in the city, have them ready, not only dragons but any cheetahs and moles too. Send a messenger to Chief Prowlus; have him assemble his troops as well." He said again.

"I'll send the message to Prowlus." Cyril said, running out the door and to the nearest post office.

Terrador smiled as he walked to the door. "I'll assemble the troops, you and Cynder handle the evacuations… You're becoming a fine dragon Spyro and you too Cynder, put those skills to good use." Terrador smiled before walking out the door, slowly followed by Volteer.

Cynder smiled and rubbed her head up against the crook in his neck, purring to the sound of the wooden and stone doors as they closed in a sort of symphonic beat. A smile found its way to Spyro's lips as well as he and Cynder went to find the guardian trainees, the warmth of the purple dragon comforting the now worried dragoness who a moment before had hope for the better.

Eldrid was strolling through the forest outside of Warfang's walls, thinking about his newfound feelings for the wind guardian trainee, Sapientia. _'How can this happen so fast? It's not natural! And I barely know her, yet it feels like I have for a long time_… _there's so many_ _confusing_ _what if's, and I don't know what to do, maybe a bath will help'_

Eldrid looked up, seeing a large waterfall pour churned water over rocks and into a water filled pool. He jumped in, leaving water on the ledge he had leapt from, and dove under the sprays and falls and diving down to the bottom, turning and looking back up at the bubbling surface.

Sapientia sat under a grove of trees, looking into the sunlight above. _'What was I thinking? I only just met him… it fells kinda right but also wrong, there's so much to think about and so little time!' _her thoughts were interrupted by a small noise in the distance.

"Hello?" She said.

No answer. She began to walk, looking under bushes and through shrubs, in trees and under rocks, until she came to a waterfall that was throwing water to the south. Sapientia looked at it with wonder, a smile on her face. "Now's as good a time as any." And she closed her eyes and hopped in.

Eldrid was holding his breath for as long as he could, seeing someone plunge into the water was bad enough, but he didn't want to give whoever it was the wrong idea. He let a few accidental gulps of air loose when he saw someone jump in, which ruined his chances of sneaking away without notice.

Eldrid was looking around frantically, trying to find something that could help him out of this, but it was futile; as he had run out of breath and had no choice but to use his wings and propel to the surface.

Sapientia pushed herself under the falls, treading water and slowing her breath. She looked down into the water and saw bubbles rush to the top, but these weren't from the falls, they were something else.

No sooner did a red, fumbling dragon shoot out of the water and choke over the water he had ingested, joining with the squeal from Sapientia. She backed away from him until she noticed who it was. "Eldrid?" She squinted her eyes.

He sighed in failure. "Uhh… yeah. Hey." He muffled, looking at the dragoness.

"Why do you look so worried?" She said, looking at the dragon that refused to make eye contact.

"I… I didn't want you to think I was… a pervert, I can't handle embarrassment." He shyly said.

"Uhh.. Listen I-." She stopped herself and many moments of awkward silence were passed.

She chuckled and before she knew it, she had her lips on his, she couldn't control herself and she expected him to draw back and scold her but he didn't, he melted into the kiss, closing his eyes, she just went with it and put a paw on his shoulder, not a care in the world.

She backed away when she noticed her blunder. "I-I'm sorry." She stuttered, looking away.

"Why are you sorry?" He asked.

"W-well… I assumed-."

"Assumed that I'd be mad for something _I _went along with?" He smiled.

"U-uh… yeah." She blushed, shoulders drooping.

He chuckled. "So why are you here?" He asked, looking back to her.

"I heard someone over here so I came to see who, and when I saw the waterfall I thought it'd be a good time to take a bath. What about you?" She smiled.

"Same." They were both blood red by this point.

"Well…uh…" He rubbed his head.

"We better get back, they might be looking for us and I want to see how Spyro's doing." She said, motioning to the way they'd come.

"Yeah, let's go." He used his wings to push the water behind them both and pull them to shore, reaching up and stepping out of the water, extending his paw to hers and helping her out of the water. They began to follow the path that they came from, walking in awkward silence the whole way.

"Um… Eldrid?" She almost whispered, looking back at him.

"Yes Sapientia?" He said.

"Uh… I know things between us have been kind of complicated… and there isn't much of an explanation for it but… I want to make sure that things can be clear between us." She composed.

"Yeah, I've been thinking a lot about this too, we barely know each other so I thought we'd start by telling each other about ourselves." They began conversing through the tree shrouded forest.

"Where are they?" Spyro asked his companion; being as they had searched all of the trainee's rooms.

"I don't know… how about we check the city?" Cynder pondered, the sunlight gleaming through the window as they both approached the balcony, pushing the window aside and launching off, flapping their wings with the wind.

They pushed through the crowds of dragons, cheetahs and moles, not minding the markets or ranting sales people, only focused on finding one of the trainees. It was about ten minutes before Spyro noticed a pair of familiar blue scales. "Akitla!" He shouted, gaining her attention from the piece of sapphire she had been gawking at.

"Spyro? What is it?" she called back, jogging over to the couple.

"Where are the others?" Cynder asked.

"I don't know, but I think Corron and Validus are sparring back at the temple." Akitla pointed to the stone monument.

"C'mon we need to talk to them." Spyro said, beginning a run back to the temple.

They dodged through the kiosks and stands, making their way back to the stone doors and pushing into the inside. They heard lots of banging and shaking, a piece of the ceiling chipping and grazing Spyro's forehead. "Is it that intense?" Spyro asked over the noise.

"I don't know, but we should probably get down there." Akitla said.

The three arrived at the dojo to see Corron and Validus standing on their back legs, locked in combat with their forepaws, scratching and biting at each other.

"Wow, they're really into this." Cynder pointed out.

"Yeah." Akitla whispered.

They were already extremely beat up but they kept fighting despite that

Corron and Validus parted their brawling and jumped away from each other, panting and gulping in air. Validus stopped his rapid breathing and charged at Corron, horns at the ready, ducking under Corron and firmly placing his dark black horns in the crooks of Corron's arms. "What are you-." Corron started but was cut off by a searing pain from an electric shock, zapping all of the nerves in his body and causing him to convulse in a painful matter.

Corron screamed in pain, and after some time he lost his breath, using his dangling paws to push himself off of Validus from the shoulders. Corron stumbled and teetered, waling like a person with a hangover, before falling over, out of energy and strength.

"Y-yes! Haha!" Validus heartily said, before falling over himself, unconscious.

Spyro just sighed. "Well that defeated the purpose of us coming here. C'mon, let's see if we can find Eldrid and Sapientia." Spyro lingered on the last sentence, walking out of the dojo with no regard of the two sleeping dragons, Cynder and Akitla just followed with smiles and shakes of their heads.

After checking all of their rooms _again_, they went to the guardians chamber to seek help from the guardians. "No, I haven't seen them since this morning when we were all training." Cyril blandly stated at Spyro's question.

With a grumble they all went to the infirmary and asked Noelle if she had seen them; no luck, and with an annoyed conscience, they decided to check the city again.

It was almost sundown and they had been checking the city for a few hours, the three had decided to split up to save time but to no avail, the two were nowhere to be found. "Where could they be?" Spyro asked the other two.

They had met up at the city wall and were asking any of the patrolling moles if they had seen the duo. They were talking to an exasperated mole, who didn't really seem excited about their constant questions. "Hey guys." They all turned to see a bruised and battered Corron and Validus.

"What's wrong?" Validus asked the worn out group.

Cynder grunted. "It's nothing, it's just that we've been searching the city for Eldrid and Sapientia all day, but we just can't find them and we're so tired." She whined, shoving all of her words out with a single breath, which was very unlike her.

"There they are." They all looked at the sound of the voice, and it was Corron and he was at the side of the wall and was pointing to the forest outside of the walls.

Spyro, Cynder and Akitla scrambled to the side of the stone gates, and there they were, strolling out of the forest with big smiles and wings draped over each other, they seemed to be talking and laughing. Spyro Cynder and Akitla sighed again, and with flaring nostrils they glided down the side of the wall.

Touching down, they sped walked to the red and white dragon. "Where were you two?" Akitla asked a little volume in her voice.

"In the woods, taking a bath." Eldrid smiled.

Spyro groaned. "Never mind, we need to talk to all of you." Spyro started.

"Yeah, it's pretty important." Cynder finished.

The guardian trainees straightened up and put on grim faces, giving their attention to Spyro and Cynder.

"We were in the guardian's chamber, looking in the pool of visions… and it wasn't good… It was Animus, he's assembling his troops, and we think they're planning an invasion." By this point they were gasping and widening their eyes.

"What are we going to do?" Sapientia asked.

"We've sent messages to the cheetahs, and we're already gathering the guards and fighters, those who can't fight are probably going to evacuate Warfang." Spyro explained.

"Well count me in." Validus blurted out, puffing out his chest.

They all stared at him. "What? I'm staying to fight." He said, shrugging his shoulders.

"You do know that they have forces of thousands right?" Cynder asked, a quizzical look on her face.

"I'm well aware of that, but I like a good fight." He said, cracking his knuckles.

"I was hoping that all of you would evacuate with all the others, but if you want to stay I can't force you to go. Who else is in?" Spyro asked, looking around.

"You know I am." Corron retorted, a quirky smirk on his snout.

"Me too!" Akitla laughed.

"You in?" Eldrid asked Sapientia, looking back to her.

"Of course." She responded, giving a small chuckle.

"Guess that means I am too." Eldrid laughed, turning his head back to the others.

"I don't think I can convince you to evacuate can I?" Spyro said to Cynder.

"Nope." She chuckled blandly.

Spyro laughed. "Thought so."

"Well, glad to know that I have all of you fighting by my side, and I wish the best of luck to all of you, whether the invasion is today or a year from now. Now how about we go back to the temple, prepare ourselves." Spyro gallantly told all of them.

And feeling encouraged at Spyro's short speech the group made their way back to the walls, walking through with smiles plastered to their faces, accepting the possible doomed fate they had.

Walking through the markets and complexes, Spyro began to question what would happen if they stayed and fought. '_What should I do, someone could get hurt or even killed. I can't live with the conscience of one of my friends or Cynder were hurt. Maybe this isn't the best idea, but how will I convince them otherwise? Then again it's not like something is guaranteed to happen to them. Still that's a big 'what if' Things don't look that good.' _Spyro fought with himself in his head.

"Ha-Haa, well if it isn't the old savior. It's been a while now hasn't it? How've you been?" a gravelly old voice said from a distance.

Spyro smiled, interrupted from his thoughts. "It can't be!" Spyro swirled around, looked in an alley and saw the long whiskers and straw hat of an old friend, a yellow light overhead buzzing happily.

"Mole-Yair!" Spyro shouted, jogging up to the mole and tackling him in a gruff hug.

"Wow now, it's been a long while and I am not getting any younger." Mole-Yair chuckled after a loud "pop!" was heard.

"I found this old guy outside in a patch of cabbages and thought it'd be nice to say hi." A cocky voice emitted from the yellow light, to which closer inspection was revealed to be Sparx.

"I can't believe it's really you! How have you been holding up? Is everything alright?" Spyro half-laughed, half-asked.

"Well things have been going very well for me, got a nice house, a bit a land outside the city I use to farm, and crops are growing pretty well. I'm sure all of my workers are fine, and by the way how have you been? I got a bit worried when you didn't some back for… a year was it?" Mole-Yair asked in the french slurred tone.

"Uhh, yeah, we still haven't completely figured that out yet." Spyro chuckled, rubbing the broad side of his head.

"And you remember Cynder." Spyro motioned to his mate, as she stepped up and shook the moles outstretched hand.

"You mean _the_ Cynder. I expected the terror of the skies to be more… uh… terrifying, looks like all them rumors were wrong about you. We haven't officially met, I'm Mole-Yair." Mole-Yair introduced.

"Yeah but I wouldn't _completely _let your guard down, just keep your eyes peeled." Sparx sarcastically whispered to Mole-Yair, earning a glare and a snarl from Spyro.

Cynder was a little discouraged when she heard her dark past mentioned, but she forced a smile anyway. "I'm Cynder, Spyro's mate. Nice to meet you Mole-Yair." Cynder forced, showing off the word mate to Sparx with emphasis.

"And these are the new guardian trainees." Spyro turned back around and pointed to each of the trainees.

"Eldrid, Akitla, Sapientia, Corron, and Validus, they'll be replacing the current guardians when they're ready." Spyro explained as the trainees waved and gave short nods.

"Well I'll be, been that long already? When I was just a lad old Ignitus was training for his spot, and by the way I'm sorry for what happened to him, Terrador told me how close you were to him." Mole-Yair consented.

"Wait, you know the guardians?" Spyro questioned.

"Oh yeah, but only Ignitus and Terrador, I met Ignitus when I was exporting some crops to the old dragon temple and I met Terrador when I came to Warfang. Mighty place Warfang is, I'm surprised anything made it past that wall." Mole-Yair complimented.

"Oh yeah, about that, we think Warfang is going to be overrun by Malefor's forces again, you know the pool of visions right?" Spyro asked.

"That swirly blue thing that tells the future?" Mole-Yair made a spinning motion with his hands.

"Yeah, the Guardians saw something at the Mountain of Malefor, I can't really explain it but it doesn't look good. Everyone might be in danger, that's why we're going to form an evacuation to the Valley of Avalar and inform the cheetahs. The cheetahs will decide where they go from there." Spyro explained in a quick fashion.

"Oh my… well when are the evacuations?" Mole-Yair popped.

"It's a little late, but we can't take any chances. I guess tomorrow at dawn would be best." Cynder spoke up.

"Well all this is all important and all but I think that it'd be best for me if I go back home to the mushroom forest, I've been a little worried about our old folks and I don't think I'll be much help here." Sparx swooped down and hovered above Spyro's muzzle.

"Well if you think that's best, just be careful." Spyro ordered, pointing to the dragonfly.

"Yeah, yeah, okay _mom_!" Sparx pestered his foster brother.

"Take care man." Sparx patted Spyro's snout before fluttering into the air and off into the distance.

"He is annoying but he's just a big softie." Cynder chuckled, putting her head on Spyro's shoulder.

"Yeah, well we'd better get started with the evacuations." Spyro suggested, curling his wing around Cynder.

"Well good luck to you all." Mole-Yair motioned to each of the dragons.

"Will you be evacuating?" Spyro asked the mole, which was more of a dumb question.

"Well of course I am, I am not the mole I used to be you know!" Mole-Yair laughed, tapping Spyro roughly on the shoulder.

Spyro released a chortle, straightening up and watching the old mole slug back into the alley, turning to the others and leisurely strolling back to the temple. The guardians and the trainees slept lightly, knowing that death could be hours away, but Spyro didn't sleep at all.

Spyro watched the last rays of sun disappear as a falcon flew in the opposite direction, a piece of parchment attached to its talon. He sighed as the ruby and emerald moons, along with the stars let themselves be known through the night, peeking over the east.

"You know that you need sleep right?" Spyro gasped and whirred around, only to see Cynder standing in the doorway.

He calmed down when he saw her. "I know." He vacantly snorted, the wind blowing leaves and dust off the balcony.

"You're worried, it's obvious, but not sleeping won't do you any good. You need to relax, everything will be alright, and I'm getting a little tired of dragging you back to bed almost every night." Cynder stalked up behind him and rubbed against his side, leading him back inside and onto the bed.

The dragon temple barely slept, some getting up in the middle of the night and returning shortly afterward, this continued until the sun's fingers of light started to show over where they did every day. Spyro had already been awake and was out of bed stretching, the night before he hadn't gotten much sleep but he had to make due.

"Is it time already?" Spyro jumped around at the sound of the voice.

"You're a really light sleeper, you know that?" Spyro snickered, nodding his head.

"Whatever, let's go get something to eat, then we'll go handle the evacuations." Cynder suggested, hopping off the bed and walking out the door.

_A few hours after sunrise_

Spyro, Cynder, and the trainees were at the southern gates, ahead of a relatively large crowd of moles, cheetahs and dragons. There were mostly women, children and the elderly, and they all walked in silence.

"Everyone listen up!" Spyro shouted, stopping the crowd in its tracks.

"You will be leaving Warfang today and going to the Valley of Avalar, you will find the cheetahs and their chief will guide you from there. I know that this is at short notice but Warfang is in danger!" Spyro shouted.

He was interrupted by a loud bang that sounded like a bell but very clattery, and then a crash, Spyro jumped up and flew to a rooftop.

The invasion had begun.

**AN: Did you like my cliffhanger? I did! I really liked bringing Mole-Yair into this and I think I did pretty good with this chapter. If it seems like I repeat words or my writing skills are bad, please take into account that I'm on experimental sleeping pills that make me feel groggy and sluggish. Im not blaming it on the pills it's just that I apparently have Parasomnia – a sleep issue. Thanks again to a guest who left a super long review on the last chapter and also The-Legend-Spyro, Belitinog, TheGryphonKing, and VallitanTheDragon who all left reviews. Buh-bye! **


	9. Chapter 9: News

**Spirit of a Dragon**

**Ch. 9: News **

**AN: What is this you say, a new chapter? HOORAYYYYYYY! I don't have much to say except that this chapter is when the story really gets juicyyy. Start the chapter! Oh and I made a mistake on Mole-Yair's accent on the last chapter, but I fixed it! Thanks to TheGryphonKing and VallitanTheDragon for reviewing (both of them were very long) :D By the way, sad news time **** since school started and its football season, chapters are gonna get slow, and by slow I mean REALLY slow. And I have an essay on the first day, sorry if I keep you waiting and feel free to leave any reviews on how you feel about that :/ by BY the way, check out some of the dude's stories I mentioned in the AN they're pretty good!**

The wind brutally screamed at a dark green dragon as he streaked through the skies with tears of anger and betrayal in his eyes, making random turns to confuse any pursuers, not that there were any though. All he could think about was getting away from that horrible city and those horrible people, nurturing his broken paw the best that he could. His tears not only from his shattered emotions, but also slightly from a pulsing pain in one of his appendages.

His paw was throbbing and had swollen up to about half its regular size, and it was completely obvious that it was no ordinary bone fracture. It was a sickly color of molding blueberries and it made him gag whenever he gazed at it.

It wasn't long before his eyes ran dry and rash red, he was out of sobs to utter, his jaw shaking at the invisible tears that could be flowing, his nostrils flaring and dripping, making an inaudible sniffle occasionally.

'_I can't believe this, felled by a mere novice… this is humiliating.'_ Animus cringed as he remembered the horror of the black dragon.

'_What was that thing? It wasn't an ordinary everyday dragon, that could've been that purple dragon that disappeared about a year ago… if so then what would everybody think if I defeated this beast, yes this could be monumental! People will tell stories of how I vanquished the once great purple dragon. It turns out he was just like Malefor.' _Animus snickered in his thoughts.

Animus looked at the sun and watched it climb over the rocky surface of mountains, it had been a short day; as it had been approaching winter, and decided that he would devise a strategy the next day, so he landed in a clearing and set up a camp for the night, feeling hurt and alone as he curled up in the short grass.

The next day Animus woke with a start, inhaling like he woke from a nightmare and holding his breath. He heard footsteps and small growling noises a few feet away from him, looking from left to right to survey his surroundings.

He looked up to see none near, but his other senses kicked in and he smelt foul odors. To his surprise the creatures pay no heed as he slithered behind a boulder, wincing at when his broken paw brushed over a bulge in it. Animus peered over the top much like a hippo, making a huge effort not to make a sound and spoil his hiding spot.

It's not like it was guaranteed to be something bad but you can never be too careful.

A group of grublins and wyverns had set up a slightly larger encampment not far from where he was. Animus estimated that it was a camp of about 40, realized that they had to have come from somewhere and decided to gain their attention; they may be of use to him and there might be more.

He silently skulked behind one of the many beige tents that were set up, putting his scaled hide as far against the tent as it would allow without bending the thin fabric, taking extreme notice of his shadow that had been drawn onto the tent. He prayed that there wasn't anybody inside. Animus took a slow deep silent breath, holding it in as he coaxed one of his eyes out.

A few of the Grublins were standing outside of a much bigger tent, shaking their heads and saying things in the odd clicking noise of their language. Two of them were repeatedly pointing to another making the same click noise over and over, before shoving him a slight bit towards the entrance. The Grublin shivered into the tent as slowly as he could, and all was silent.

A scream was heard. "WHAT?!" a commanding voice bellowed.

There was a splatter of blood on the flap of the tent door. Animus dodged a few drops of blood as a bulky orc rushed out of the bivouac stopping in the center of the camp. "Listen up maggots!" the orc screamed through his mossy, dirty chops.

Animus suddenly repented the idea of getting their attention.

"I better not get another negative report about the mines or you'll all be sorry! I swear it!" He looked around to make sure that he had all of the Grublins attention, before slumping into another tent on the far side of the encampment, not far from Animus.

'_The mines? What is he talking about?'_ Animus cocked his head, trying to see inside of the parted tent flaps in which the orc had entered. He stopped to wipe some dried drool from his lip, assuming that he drooled in his sleep.

His thoughts were silenced as other Grublins were walking into it with tools in hand, and curiosity got the best of him. Animus trotted out of his hiding spot behind the tent, not using his broken paw and generally making his way to the direction of the tent he saw the orc walk into, he surveyed his surroundings to see if anyone had seen him, but they were all too busy clicking at each other, probably curses about the orc.

Animus ducked into the tent and looked back and forth, checking for any foes. None. His attention was caught however by a hollow cavity in the earth. A tunnel that led down deep, dwelling with the sounds of clangs and bangs of tools on rock.

Animus shrugged his shoulders slyly and stepped into the diagonally sloping cavern.

The bangs got louder as he ventured deeper into the aperture, he looked around and saw, torches attached to walls and Grublins hacking away at different points in the rocks, there were even mine cars that were filled with rubble. It was then that he saw the orc, screaming at a group of Grublins about them being lazy and other insults. Animus decided to be cautious and he hid behind one of the wooden mine cars.

It was clear to him that the mine car was filled to the brim, and he made sure not to make any movement on it. The orc finished his rant on the Grublins and began to walk back towards Animus' direction, stomping with brutality.

Closer and closer the orc got, it was amazing that he hadn't noticed Animus yet. However fierce the orc looked to Animus was enough to make him clutch the wooden cart to avoid being seen. His mistake.

He didn't know why he did it, but it was probably because the orc was about twice his height and the fact that his dominant paw was broken, which made the orc look quite demeaning, and he was probably only heading for one of the branching catacombs to the left or right.

And as fate would have it, the cart wobbled and pieces of coal bounced off of the pile, making shifting noises creak through the caves. The orc stopped and looked at the source, seeing a flash of green scales. He chortled.

"It seems we have a dragon in our miss. Everybody, give our scaly friend a hand for making it this far. The orc and all the grublins around him sarcastically clapped, yet it wasn't that sarcastic for the grublins as some of them cheered.

He realized that it was too late to flee, so he stepped out more into the open, limping on his right paw: the broken one of course.

"You know _your_ kind killed our master, and we don't take so kindly to that or you being here." At this point the Grublins had formed a circle around him, cornering him.

"Looks like we have some prey gentlemen…. Leave him to me." The orc smiled as he cracked his knuckles, he didn't have a weapon on him but Animus could tell that the orc was a good fighter.

He did the only rational thing in his mind. He flew.

It wasn't really a grade A fly not really even a fly. He ran/flew through the twists and turns, giving himself an extra boost with his wings, which kind of evened out his running with the broken paw. He rounded into a circular room that ironically resembled an arena. He looked frantically around the room for a way out, but felt his heart come out of his mouth when he heard and felt the orc storm into the room.

"Hey, look at the bright side, we can use your bones and horns to make weapons, or even sell them, although your pelt will hang on my walls…" the orc smirked.

Animus wobbled into a shaky battling stance, shooting a glare at the enemy.

"Getting feisty now are we…? how about this, in a gesture of generosity I will tell you my name, in exchange I want yours, and in the off chance that you defeat me, I will take you to the branch of my power, the Mountain of Malefor and you can take my place as a general." The orc was just talking nonsense now, overwhelmed at the thought of the dragon taking his place, he actually found it vaguely humorous.

"Sound good? My name is Baltorg, and yours?" He motioned a hand at Animus.

"A-Animus." He whimpered, bulking up a moment afterward.

"Well okay Animus, let the fight begin."

Baltorg bowed, and Animus was taken aback at how well mannered he was for an orc, but it was as if he had an alter ego and turned into some kind of beast, hardwired for killing.

Baltorg launched at Animus, running with incredible stomps, intimidating Animus to the point where he barely dodged the charge, he shook his head bringing himself into a fighting pose, spreading his feet and pulling his right paw up and tucked it safely in his chest.

Animus ran the best he could, using his wings as a support again, this was the best he could do as he made his way to Baltorg. It was completely futile, as the orc swatted Animus out of the way and snickered, Animus crashed into a wall, making small bits of rock to fall on him. He shook it off however and resumed his fighting stance.

"Before we continue, would you like to know what we are mining down here? Well it's the infamous black spirit gem of course, it might be slightly misnamed however; as it has a purple glow but whatever." Baltorg then charged at Animus again, which made him think that Baltorg could actually be part bull.

Even though Baltorg was a mere ten feet away Animus once again evaded the attack with trouble, and Baltorg crashed into the wall, making even more rubble fall from the same spot.

"Why are you telling me all of this?" Animus asked, a trickled of blood leaking from the corner of his mouth.

"Because I don't expect you to win!" Baltorg screamed.

Animus suddenly felt the need to use a little of his earth abilities, it was his strong suit after all. He puffed out his chest and inhaled and exhaled a few times, fixing his posture and putting on a menacing look immediately. "Ooo, look who still has some fight left." Baltorg snorted.

The words were shoved roughly back up his throat when a pillar of sheetrock erupted from beneath him, thwacking him in the chin and up off the ground a little. He fell to the ground in a puff of dust, landing on his back. He got up with a bit of blood on his lip. "So you want to play like that then? Alright." He rolled his head, popping the joints.

"From now on it'll be a lot tougher. Little pest." Animus had a feeling that he wouldn't be so nice any more.

Baltorg took off at a run towards Animus, hands balled into fists; Animus could tell that he couldn't just dodge this so he braced himself for impact, putting his back legs behind him, securing himself into the dirt.

They collided; Animus head butted Baltorg the best he could, clashing his head with Baltorg's. He was pushed back, but held his own, scratching into the dirt for traction.

Animus was pushed upwards against the same indent he made moments ago with brute force, he felt defenseless, and he was. He felt severe pain in his ribcage and looked down to see Baltorg vigorously pounding at his chest, over and over with the punches. He had no breath left just pain, the only thing he could feel.

He was sure that his ribs were broken, because of the fact that he was coughing up blood.

A crash was erupted from behind him and he fell backwards, into a smaller room. Something was different about this room from the other; it had dark purple crystals, almost black, lining the room, with a generally large one in the center.

The crash had dazed Baltorg and he lay on the floor a few feet away. Animus was still fully conscious however, groaning and broken, but conscious. '_Go… to the crystals… they will give you strength… young reviver.'_ A voice rang in his head what did all that mean, right now he didn't really care were or who it was, so he dragged himself by a paw and a wing, it was by far the hardest thing that he had ever done.

Although the large gem was only a mere foot away he was struggling to make it to the beckoning slab of sediment.

He hobbled on the floor as Baltorg shook his head and got back up. Animus put his paw on the luminescent gem. '_Now… focus your energy….all you can spare… let it into your soul… singe your heart with darkness!'_

Normally he wouldn't do such drastic things from some random voice in his head, but his life was on the line this time, so he did as the vacant unearthly voice said.

Animus felt a surge of energy and pain, run through him like electricity, the gems pulsing with waves of black and purple, like a deathly tied-eye. His could feel his ribs shift back into place, surges of lightning boomed out of him, his paw however remained broken.

He was levitated into the air, dark wisps flying around him the whole time. Baltorg just watched in awe as the nearly crippled dragon turned into a monster of destruction before him, although his physical appearance remained the same his aura made Baltorg quiver.

The ripples of energy imploded into Animus and he flowed down onto the ground smoothly, glowing with black energy. He looked like he had been pampered all his life, excluding the scowl on his lips

He turned to Baltorg and walked forward, resisting the pain on his right paw. "So I'll give you a choice, you can surrender nicely and I can use you as my pawn, or you can make the wrong choice and continue from where you stand." It was something about his eyes that burned Baltorg to the core.

The orc shivered, and then chuckled.

"What's so funny?" Animus asked with a cool soft voice.

"Not just anybody can absorb the power of a black spirit gem, most of the time their body rejects the power a short period after the infusion. I'd say you have a few seconds.

The time was agonizing for Baltorg, his fear grew in intensity as he expected Animus to double over in some kind of seizure, but that never occurred.

Baltorg laughed again, but it was half lived he knew the effects of the black spirit gems; he'd heard that there were patches of the same crystal in the earth golem. _Baltorg_ now feared for his life.

Baltorg scrambled for the black spirit gems, but stopped when a black mist enveloped him. He couldn't move. "Now we wouldn't want any serious rivalry now would we?" Animus walked past the struggling orc and back to the gems.

Animus chuckled, growing slightly. He spun around and struck the gems with his flail tail blade, crushing them and watching as they disappeared in a puff of smoke. He did the same to the rest and turned to Baltorg. "So, what's your decision?" Baltorg still couldn't talk.

"Okay then." Animus jumped up and slashed Baltorg in the cheek with his left paw, leaving four deep gashes.

The smoke around Baltorg's chops disappeared and he muttered. "Okay… I am a man of my word… and I doubt that I will be able to beat you, I know when I'm defeated." Baltorg muttered, sweat all over his body.

"Good… now why are you even mining down here…? Never mind, that's a question for another time. Shall we go?" Animus seemed to have an entirely new personality, seemingly to have no fears or feelings.

Animus chuckled as he recounted the events that led to him marching the army before him, his face straightening up as the walls of Warfang came into view…

"No… no this is too soon! We need more time!" Spyro frantically looked through the crowd at the southern gates, trying to find a familiar face, and one presented itself to him in the form of a blacksmith.

"MASON!" Spyro screamed at the top of his lungs, gaining the mole's attention, lingering on the last syllable.

Spyro scrambled down the side of the building, landing roughly on the pavement and making his own way to the short furry creature.

"Spyro! What is it?" Mason wild eyed him.

"I need you to lead these people, take them to Avalar Valley and go to the cheetahs, we've sent them a letter and they'll know what to do when you get there. You know the way right?" Spyro ordered.

"W-well yes but Spyro I'm no leader, I don't know if these people with listen to me." Spyro looked to the screaming and shouting crowd.

"Listen up, everyone!" Spyro tried in vain, getting agitated at their lack of attention.

Spyro's anger overflowed and he exhaled a massive pillar of red hot flame into the air, erupting gasps and all the attention to go to The purple dragon. "All of you, this is Mason, he will be leading you to Avalar." Spyro used his powers over earth and raised Mason into the air on a stand.

"I expect you to do everything he says, I trust him and I know he can do this, which should be enough for you. Mason I need you to get these people out of here fast, make sure to do a head count on the way. You can do this." Spyro encouraged, whispering the last part to the mole.

"If you all will please follow me, don't rush but please hurry. Open the gates!" Mason marched in front of the following evacuators, leading them out of the dragon crested gateway.

Spyro watched as the last dragon exited Warfang and the gate creaked shut, being welded closed. Spyro spun slowly back around and looked at Cynder, exchanging a nod. "Promise me that you'll be safe, and try not to lose control." Cynder moved closer to Spyro, and squinting her emerald eyes.

"I promise. I love you" Spyro put his forehead against hers and closed his eyes.

"I love you too." Cynder shared a small kiss with him, embracing him for as long as he would allow.

"Let's go, we need to find the guardians." Spyro said, breaking the kiss.

They jumped into the air and soared toward the northern gate, where Warfang's troops were settled along with the guardians. They landed on the wall, where the guardians and the trainees were standing, looking at the intimidating forces.

Thousands were before them, Grublins and Dreadwings, even Wyverns, some airborne, the remaining on the ground. Animus was marching the army forward, stopping meters in front of Warfang. "Hello! Fine evening isn't it?" he taunted.

"it's been a little bit crowded for my taste." Spyro spat down at Animus

"You know you can still surrender and join my mighty army right?" Animus shouted up the wall, widely spreading his arms.

"We would rather die than join you, and I'm sure I'm speaking for everyone here. We will fight until we turn out victorious." Spyro shouted back to Animus from atop the wall, the guardians standing on his right and the trainees on his left.

"What a shame, you would have been fine assets to my army. I may not have dragons but I have numbers… Let the fight begin!" Animus shouted, launching into the air and retreating back into his forces.

"COWARD!" Terrador screamed to the flying Animus, cupping his paw around his snout to extend the distance of the sound.

The forces waited a few moments before executing a battle cry and charging to the wall, the gates bursting open and Warfang's forces pouring out into the crispy air of dawn. Animus' forces were uncountable and Warfang's could easily be estimated to three thousand.

The militias collided, the Grublins hacking away with clubs, swords, and axes. The dragons, cheetahs and moles started clawing, biting, using weapons and unleashing elemental attacks.

A few dragons were chosen to fly among the ranks and set them ablaze, freeze them with ice, crush them with boulders or electrify them, but some were taken down by Grublins riding Dreadwings. The position was weak however, they ran out of energy fast and they had to retreat back to Warfang for green spirit gems.

There were even lines of cheetahs on the barracks, bows in hand, firing into the scrimmage, they fell the least often, probably because almost nobody could get to them, however some wyverns or Dreadwings managed to take down a few of them.

Spyro launched off of the wall and propelled himself at the enemy, along with the others, stopping at the line of deadly animals and using his methods of fighting to kill many instantaneously. He aimed for vital arteries such as wrists, temples or the neck.

They seemed to keep coming, as one fell two took its place, it pushed his endurance to its limits. His chest was already heaving a few minutes in, he couldn't keep up, he began to make mistakes, slipping up and cursing himself silently.

Spyro had no armor to adjourn him, leaving him bloodstained and covered in sweat. He felt naked to any attacks; his offence was his only defense as he fought with malice. However, he began to get mad at himself because he was making mistakes that a hatchling would've made.

It was as if he was more animalistic than he normally fought, he seemed, angrier, filled with rage and he didn't know why. He felt acrimony, of course Spyro never wanted to kill unless it was in dire need, but in this case he began to enjoy it, his pupils dilated and a crooked smile stretched across his face, blood leaking into his lips.

He increased the speed of his attacks, making many fall over and over, until he had to step over the pile of mutilated bodies. A sick tormented laugh erupted from his mouth, licking his bloody mouth as it resided.

Cynder had heard the laugh from where she had taken a stance, which was meters away from him. _'Oh no!'_ she screamed in her mind, gaining even more fear than she already had.

She was already preoccupied with the task at hand though, she had her own Grublins to fight, there were even some elite Grublins or landed wyverns. She was almost completely surrounded, and she was staying put.

Spyro wasn't even thinking while he fought now, he was carelessly using elemental attacks, some infused with his physical attacks. He would freeze crowds of Grublins and wyverns, then brutally smash them to pieces, burn them to smoldering ashes, implode them with electricity or swing massive fragments of rock at them.

One Grublin managed to get behind Spyro, and tried to get a good shot on him by jumping onto his back, it was a bad mistake. Spyro reached around and grabbed the grassy hairs on the Grublins back, swinging it over his head and slamming it painfully on the ground.

Its scream was cut short by an amethyst purple paw crushing his windpipe, ending its role. He resumed his slaughter on the enemies, and it wasn't like his method wasn't effective, it was just ruthless, it wasn't him.

There was still one weapon up his sleeve that he hadn't used yet: Convexity, the one choice in his arsenal that he refused to use.

After the battle with Malefor Spyro promised himself that he would never use convexity again, it was a negative element and he wanted nothing to do with it; however he was not in the right mind then and was set to use it amply.

The destructive power flooded his mind, and he evilly smiled, inhaling a gulp of oxygen. Many shrieks were ripped through the air as grublins and wyverns fell to the ground, chunks of their body vaporized by the white hot raw energy.

That was it; Cynder knew what all of that screaming meant and she had to get to Spyro, she wasn't going to let him loose to his darker side, but how was she going to get away from the engulfing crowd of lethal animals.

She hadn't used any elemental attacks yet so maybe she could use some of those. She tried pushing them away with a gust of wind, burning them with poison, and blowing them away with blasts of fear, but more and more took the felled places.

She needed to launch at the same time she attacked so she used her last element, shadow, and dove into her _own _shadow, disappearing and leaving confused grublins over the spot where she left. There was a slight silence; the only other sound was other fighters and the clicks of grublins.

Grublins were knocked into the air when Cynder erupted from under them, shadow whipping around her. She was already off the ground so she was propelling herself for the purple dragon. She was out of breath but she gasped anyway.

Spyro was standing over smoldering bodies, firing convexity into the enemy. There was a rancid smell of burnt blood, which would make anyone gag, and he would walk steadily forward so his attack would remain in range.

She stopped in the air, marveling at what was once her beloved dragon, but was now a beast of terror. She wasn't sure if she wanted to go into that mess of a massacre, but she had to stop him before he went too far.

She continued her flight, summoning all of her courage to fly into the fray. She landed behind him, gagging at all the guts and gore she had to walk over. "Spyro! Spyro stop!" He didn't hear her.

She moved forward more, grabbing him roughly by the shoulder blades and shaking him a good bit. "You can't let it overwhelm you, don't do this here! Not now!" she screamed. He still did not heed her words.

"SPYRO!" she grabbed his head and shoved it around to hers, it was lucky for her that he stopped his attack when she faced him.

The look on his face struck horror into her soul, normally she wouldn't be this scared but this was Spyro, her mate, she was scared for him. She was too late, his overuse of the convexity element had taken its toll, and he had no pupils, just egg white soulless eyes, a blank sullen expression on his face.

"Too late Cynder! Hahahahaha!" Spyro yelled in his corrupted dark voice.

Cynder gasped and was met with a sharp slap across the face; she never expected to be hit by Spyro, not even when he was in his corrupted form, and she fell to the ground, or more like the pile of dead smelly bodies.

She blinked her eyes, as the hit had dazed her, regaining enough vision to see multiple blurry Spyros spinning around her peripheral vision. She didn't notice that his scales had turned an onyx, oily black until she recovered from the hit.

He returned to his onslaught with more intensity than before, disregarding the standing black dragoness behind him. "Spyro I'm begging you! Please stop! This isn't what you are; find it in your heart to have willpower! You're stronger than it! PLEASE!" She begged him repeatedly.

"Listen you pathetic little pest, I don't want to have to hurt you, and I don't really want anything to do with you, but if you force my hand I will not hesitate." Spyro's ear crunching voice rattled, only turning his head away from the horde for a moment to look at Cynder.

Some of the grublins had stopped around them in a circle, it was an easy estimate that they liked a good show, but there was an occasional one with a little too much bravado who came charging in, only to be met with death.

'_I can't believe it, he's lost, he's gone….. And I don't think I'll be able to bring him back by just talking to him.'_ She began to grasp hold of the idea of never seeing the real Spyro again.

She couldn't even do anything; she was so struck with emotional pain that she just stood there without notice. Spyro however took to the skies, returning to his barrage of attacks in the air.

The surrounding grublins and wyverns_, _noticing that the show was over, began to move in on Cynder, and she let them. She didn't care what happened now. She closed her eyes

With weapons raised, the enemy closed in on her, hoping to end the life of Cynder the dragoness. There was a flash of blue and white, and she was gone, the space enclosing with grublins.

Cynder expected to feel the unforgiving wrath of pain, but was met with no such thing. She opened her eyes to see a large blue and white dragon with bushy eyebrows holding her atop the wall. The glint over the sun made him look distorted though. "Cyril?" Cynder asked.

"No, my name is Kyslik I am a co-captain at the Presidium Guard. And we have not officially met." The old dragon muffled without an emotion on his face.

"Oh… well my name is-."

"Cynder. I've heard a great deal about you, though you don't seem to be this so called 'Terror of the Skies.' But this is no time for small talk, would you mind telling me about the black scaled fellow?" Kyslik interrupted.

It was then that she remembered the raging black monster about two hundred yards out to the battlefield. She was immediately struck with grief. " That's… That's Spyro."

"Wait, you mean _the _Spyro? The one who fought the dark master?" Kyslik said, taken aback by his vigor.

"But aren't his scales supposed to be amaranthine?" The ice dragon minded, keeping his gaze fixed on Spyro.

"He isn't in his right mind, it's a long story but his darker side has been overwhelming him lately, somehow he's been infused with darkness, it's like a second persona inside of him. He can't control it though." She choked up while explaining it to him.

"Is there a way to break him out of it?" Kyslik questioned, wincing as Spyro shattered a wyvern's skull.

"Something has to make its way to his heart," Cynder said plainly. "or something emotional… usually it has something that connects to me."

Kyslik cringed. "Well we can't let him continue on with what he's doing now, I mean sure he's taking many down but he does it so ruthlessly."

"I know. it's completely unlike him." Cynder choked up.

"Have you seen him like this before?" The serious face on Kyslik was like stone.

"Y-yes, but why?" Cynder backed up a step to show her shock.

"How strong do you think he is?" Kyslik asked, leaning down in a whisper.

"Pretty strong. Haven't you fought him before though?" She raised her eyebrow at him

"That was with the guardian's aid." Kyslik observed Spyro rip a jugular out of a wyvern.

"Why do you want to know all these things?" Cynder tilted her head.

"Kyslik… Kyslik what are you thinking about doing?" She began to get worried when she got no answer.

"Kyslik NO!"

She attempted to grab onto him but only made it in time to see him launch off of the great wall, hurling towards Spyro with artificial agro. He stopped in mid-air to avoid a flying mauled grublin. "Spyro!" He bellowed.

"You! Oh I remember you!" Spyro screamed, turning away from the writhing wyvern in his paws and dropping it to the ground.

"Ooo, someone's got a temper." Kyslik taunted.

Spyro suddenly regained his composure. "Do you _want _a death sentence?" Spyro asked, cocking an eyebrow.

Kyslik smiled; finding it funny that the menacing dragon could possibly be bipolar.

"What are you smiling at? Did I say something funny?" Spyro asked, the chilling, overlapping voice reminding Kyslik that what he was doing was serious.

"No, please excuse my behavior." Kyslik apologized.

"Why?" Spyro questioned, looking at him like it was the stupidest thing he had ever heard.

"If you're on a battlefield and you don't feel enraged then you're no warrior, just some kind of low, senseless fool, there is no surviving in being well mannered, giving mercy, and having resent for those that you kill." Spyro motioned to the blood lining his paws.

"You're so naïve, you will never fight like a true dragon." The insults rolled out like rocks on a hill, and that final one caused a landslide in Kyslik's anger track.

"I believe that we have some unfinished business that we left at the well of souls." Kyslik scowled.

"Indeed we do." Spyro chuckled.

"This area seems to be a bit crowded, care to move into the city?" Kyslik regarded the persons below.

"Let's." Spyro agreed.

Cynder watched motionlessly as the dragon she once knew and loved and the dragon she just met soared across the barracks and into the city, and she had a feeling that only one of them would return.

Mason trudged through dry pebbles and cracks in the ground, wiping off an enormous bead of sweat as he looked to see how his followers were holding up. What he saw was not a forgiving sight, hatchlings were sobbing quietly over their parents shoulders, and some had stumbled too hard and were dangling asleep from dragon's wings. Elderly men and women travelled with their eyes half shut, trying to avoid the horrendous heat bearing down on them.

It was only the beginning of spring but Mason could tell that it would be a harsh one.

He was very aware of the leathery sensation in his mouth; no one had had any food or water all day, excluding a few younger cheetahs and dragons that carried bags of supplies and resources on their backs, sharing the most they could spare. It was inevitable that they had to stop soon, but the distant echoes of war kept them going out of fear.

He couldn't take it anymore, the looks on everyone's faces were too much to bear, and he decided that they had gone far enough for the time being.

Mason turned and cleared his throat, but he still spoke with a raspy, scratchy voice. "This looks like a good place to stop."

The passengers literally slumped to the ground, sighing and complaining. "Look, look, I know that this isn't the ideal way to travel but it will only be for the next day, we'll reach the cheetah village by this time tomorrow. We'll take an intermission and then we'll get back on the road." He started, which began to brighten the day.

"First things first, we'll need food, water and shelter. I'll need any cheetahs and dragons who can hunt to spread out in a few directions, find enough food for us to last." A number of fit looking cheetahs and dragons stepped out of the fray and marched off into one direction.

"I'll need a group of anyone with water canteens to go find a water source." Some slightly older cheetahs and moles pulled out oilskin pouches and tin cans, and headed out in another direction.

"Anyone who's left I'll need on resources." A group of female earth dragons exited the crowd and proceeded to create shelters made out of sheetrock.

The only people left were either too old to do physical labor or too young to know how to.

Mason sighed and rubbed his temples, he couldn't stop thinking of all the things that could go rogue. The village of the cheetahs was only a day's walk away, but a lot could happen in twenty-four hours, they could be attacked, a sickness could break out, lack of food or water could cause starvation. It was almost too much to take and he began to wonder why Spyro put him in charge of the task.

He looked at the circle of whining children and coughing elders, silently saying that it would be a miracle if they made it to the cheetah village unharmed. He walked over and sat down next to an old, pale looking cheetah who was moping about someone taking his cider, it was a small piece of joy for Mason though and it lifted his spirits.

Kyslik stood frigid against the cobblestone paved street of Warfang, staring down the black smoke emulating dragon like he was Malefor himself. The wind cascaded across each and every scale on their bodies, and black rain clouds had merged above them, giving the empty streets an even more ominous look.

A stray newspaper flowed through the air and found its way onto Spyro's muzzle. He did nothing but reach up with a paw and crumple it into a tiny ball, granting no regard to the smoky residue that blew to the ground; as he had lit it ablaze.

The stare down lasted no longer, as Spyro said. "What's wrong? Scared to fight?" in the bone-chilling voice that sounded as if many people were talking over him.

Kyslik gave a one-more-insult-and-you-die kind of look. "No, I'm just surprised that a dragon of _your _magnitude would have already attacked." Kyslik snorted.

"We'll I'm taking my time to take pity on you, I don't think that you'll last very long." Spyro retorted.

"So you pity me? You're the one who would take me aside from the _real_ battle just so you could prove a point." Kyslik smirked.

A deep growl dispelled from the back of Spyro's throat. "Oh you'll regret that!"

With those words Spyro clawed his way with wind-like speed to the ice dragon, attempting a quick strike to the head, only to be pestered as Kyslik swiftly evaded the attack with a duck. Spyro continued with a flurry of claws and bites, each being dodged with a fast move by Kyslik.

Kyslik stopped a swipe of the tail by grabbing it with his mouth, launching it around and aiming his throw at a mid-sized house. Spyro unfurled his wings and aerodynamically spun, causing him to stop a few feet from the stone brick house.

The black dragon gaped as if he were yawning, and a barrage of large fireballs expelled from within him. Kyslik jumped to the left and right, trying his best to avoid the searing heat. When Spyro shot his last one he anticipated Kyslik's movements and he wasn't so lucky, the ball of flame hit him dead center in the chest, sending him rolling back onto the ground. Kyslik's chest plates were chapped and smooth with a minor burn, he quickly soothed out some of the pain with a wisp of frigid air.

Kyslik decided that it was time to retaliate; he focused on his powers of ice, he felt the tug in his gut, and the air dropped a noticeable amount of degrees' Spyro looked to his sides as white mist seeped out of the air, freezing moist areas.

"What are you doing?" Spyro screamed.

"Lowering the temperature," Kyslik smirked and slowed his heavy breathing. "and slowing you down."

Spyro had a split second to react to the words, Kyslik moved with the speed of a cheetah, feeling invigorated at his natural climate, and he struck the onyx dragon across the face, drawing a smudge of a bruise.

He brushed across the pain and forced his numb limbs to move, sluggishly lashing and biting at Kyslik again. It only resulted in a worse outcome; Kyslik would stretch out of the way of Spyro with the utmost of ease, watching as he grunted harder with each missed attack.

At this point a thin layer of frost had developed around the stone tiles and their breaths made clouds of fog. His attack was increasing in intensity more and more by the second. When Spyro slipped and fell on his stomach, legs spread out in all directions, was when his nerves destroyed themselves.

"That's it! I'll kill you!" Spyro wailed.

A gloomy wave of a slow feeling spread through Kyslik like water, rendering him with a sick exhausted emotion. This scared him, he knew something was wrong and he didn't like it, he felt as if he moved slower… or Spyro was moving faster. It dawned over him that Spyro had activated dragon time and his eyes met an extremely angered Spyro's, and they were inches from his face.

Kyslik flinched and reeled back, only seeing a flash of black and meeting a searing pain in his lower abdomen. He looked down to see a smoky fist lodged in his stomach, pushing the air from his lungs.

He felt the groggy, gloom wave disappear and fell back more clutching his abdomen and rasping cool air, which smoothed some of his pain.

The frost had now turned into a rather thick layer of ice, enraging Spyro even more. "And I'm through with your little _magic trick!_" Spyro closed his glowing eyes and rose into the air, licks of fire leaping off of his scales.

Kyslik sighed in desperation, he knew a fire fury when he saw one, even if his vision was blurring. He could even feel the heat from where he staggered. An eye retching, blood filled smile etched onto Spyro's muzzle, informing Kyslik that Spyro didn't think that the ice dragon would survive this.

Spyro crossed his wings in an X formation, curling his tail up in front of him, and Kyslik knew that his inevitable death was approaching. But he wasn't out yet.

Spyro basically had a seizure; he squirmed around in an elegant fashion, directing different coils of flame in all directions. All shapes and sizes moved around in a dance of menacing heat, some morphing into one another, others splitting apart then spiraling around.

Kyslik could now feel an irritating burn on his scales and he watched as the spires of fire rushed towards him in a race of danger. The turquoise dragon focused his last bit of energy into his paw, which alone took a lot of energy. He pulled his paw up with a trust and any remaining moisture or frost around him flew to him following his hand movements and forming a jagged crystallized mount of ice as a shield.

The wall of flame compacted into a concentrated ball, crashing into the ice formation with enough force to knock the ice to pieces, and Kyslik into the window of a stone house, crashing a pane of glass into a million crumbled bits.

Kyslik had shielded himself from the broad of the attack, which gave him time to slide behind a wooden countertop in solitude, breathing hard silently, which didn't last long. He held his breath as he heard the ragged fumble of footsteps slip through the window.

"I know that you're in here, you might as well come on out and fight me like a real dragon, not some cowardice lizard!" Spyro shouted overturning a table with fine white china placed around it, causing it to crash to the floor in shrapnel.

It was all the dragon could do from bounding out there and ripping his jugular clean out. He tightened his fists in anger, digging his claws into his skin, almost to the point where blood would show. Then he remembered the sound of smashed dishes and an idea struck him like lightning on a clear day. He opened two cabinets that had been conveniently placed under the countertop, thanking his ancestors silently as he found it neatly fixed with more sets of the same white china.

Kyslik peered around the corner of the bar like an owl to its prey, observing how absorbed Spyro was with throwing down a bookcase. He smiled and picked a medium sized platter from the assorted stack and looked one last time at Spyro. This was the perfect time. He threw the plate like a Frisbee, watching in contentment as it smacked him in the back of the head.

Spyro whirled his head around like a cat –fast and skulk like- and looked for where the disk had come from, there was only a cluttered, broken house.

The ice dragon closed his eyes and hurled a wine glass across the room. "There you are!" Spyro spun to where the glass hit, only to be hit by two more flying plates in the head and back.

Spyro growled. "That's It! Where are you!?" he screamed.

Spyro roared and the floor rumbled, Kyslik pressed himself against the cabinet as an attempt to steady him, which did not help at all. The earth beneath them erupted up in spires of rock, pinning all remaining furniture to the ceiling. His countertop shot to the ceiling and stayed glued there, making him meet the once again smiling face of Spyro.

Kyslik sighed, looking to the setting sun out in the complete distance, they had been fighting for a while and maybe it was time to bring it to a close.

Spyro threw his front paws up into the air then back down onto the floor with a resounding smack, which lead to the earth's movements again. Small pillars of the floor busted out and bided Kyslik's paws, tail, and neck, rendering his movements. He was jerked to the floor and spread out on his back, grimacing when his head bounced off of the floor.

"After all your trouble this is how you end… slow and purposeless." Spyro said as he walked up to Kyslik's head.

"There's no escape." Spyro chuckled, channeling his elemental powers into his tail like he'd done it millions of times before.

A small unnoticeable drop of salty water fell from one of Kyslik's eye, finding its way into a crevice and losing its way forever. Kyslik couldn't find a way out of this; he began to sweat in desperation

Spyro brought his leaf shaped tail blade up to Kyslik's chest and without warning, set him jerking out of control when choruses of electricity blasted through his body. He could barely get his mouth open to scream, and if he did it wasn't that long, they came out in short, frightened bursts like he was on a rollercoaster that he absolutely hated.

"Funny thing about electricity," Spyro started. "When it can't find an exit it makes one!"

Just as he finished his sentence a stomach curdling sound was heard and Kyslik's side was ripped clean open, not to the point where his entails were falling out but blood was leaving him like running water. Spyro stopped, relieving his tail from a charred spot on Kyslik's chest. "This looks like a good way to leave you." Spyro sounded quieter, almost solemn until…

"Spyro!" A woman's voice screamed.

Cynder burst through the broken window looking at them both with the utmost of concern. "I told you to stay away!" Spyro screamed at her, looking back to the writhing ice dragon that was now looking paler than ever.

Cynder rushed over to Kyslik and looked at his closing cyan eyes with her radiant emerald ones. "Cynder." He smiled.

"Make sure you take care of this one, don't let this happen again. I'm counting on you… Cynder." His voice was raspy and slow, like he was trying to speak in a deep steamy room.

Cynder kept trying to free him from his earthly shackles. "Cynder stop… I'm afraid that it's too late; this is the end for me… Tell the others that… I was glad… to have served… them." Kyslik whispered, exhaling the last word, making it barely audible.

Cynder couldn't feel him anymore; it was like she was touching a sea shell, lifeless, hard, and unmoving.

"Do you see what you've done!" she screamed at Spyro.

"You've committed a murder in cold blood! Do you even have a soul? How can you be like _this_ when the dragon that I know and love is still inside you Spyro? It's like you're not even trying to fight it!" She wailed.

"Where has the old Spyro gone? I want _that_ Spyro back. Please, please come back to me Spyro." Her voice cracked as she broke down in front of the dragon that had killed Kyslik.

The black steam that emitted from Spyro could now be seen residing and Spyro regained his amethyst pupils, although his scales remained a chalky black. "Don't cry… please." The phrase echoed into the now beginning night as he fell over unconscious once again.

Cynder walked over to him and wiped her nose on her paw before wide eyeing him falling over herself. It wasn't from sadness or weariness or the scent of a dead body, the reason was unknown.

A hum repeated in the air and they began to glow, and their bodies became faded. They disappeared in a blinding flash of blue light, leaving a corps of a friend in an ugly, bloody heap.

Outside of the house the wind picked up slightly and the burned fragments of a newspaper floated up into the air, spreading out and turning over. Disbanding in the eerie light of the moons…

**AN: OOOOOMMMMMYYYYY GOOOOOSHHHH it has been ffreaking forever! Almost three months I think? Yes it has. I am extremely sorry for the late update and I feel really bad! It took me so long because when I started the chapter football season had started and school is escalating very quickly, but know that I've finished the chapter (Which took like three months) football season is over and I'll have more time on this. Please don't think that I'll abandon my story, noo I see something in this and I probably won't leave fanfiction for a while now, all I ask is that you stay with me through until the end. *Other stuff!* I have a few announcements, a week after I upload this chapter I will be changing a few things about my account, my penname will be changed to just "IOTA.G" and the name of the story will be just "Spirit of a Dragon" and I'll also be updating the other chapters with better work. Thanks to VallitianTheDragon and TheGryphonKing you two are probably my most loyal readers right now. Until next time! IOTA out! **


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